I love role-play. I love fantasy. My real website is www.dragontayl.com. My stories are there. It’s also where I host role-playing games on Neverwinter Nights (nwn.bioware.com). Role-playing is my main hobby, almost to the exclusion of all others.
Role-play comes in many flavors. There’s the “I wonder what I would be like if I were ninety pounds of tempered elf amazingly incredible with bow and daggers, who could cast spells, couldn’t eat grains, had five nose rings, and was named Flibertygibbit Greballion of the Green Leaf.” You ‘go out’ with a bunch of friends, laugh, show your superiority over impressive monsters (or die trying), find the best punch lines, and just have a blast.
There’s the “If I were transposed into a fantasy character, what would I want to be? How would I act? What could I do?” You create an alter ego, typically the best of what you have to offer, wrestling with the dark inner secrets you don’t expose to just anyone, and write a tragic tale (though it can have a good ending, it is rarely comedy) with epic battles both within and without.
There’s the “I would like to try something a little different, see how well I can role play this kind of personality and this kind of adventurer.” You put together a party of friends and delve deep into mystery (often wonderful comedy) and explore how you think that kind of person would react.
For me, if you play sports, I end up with the “goalie” position in role-play. I’m not coordinated enough to play even goalies in real sports, though I love to play ice hockey (the term play is used very loosely here) and I enjoy playing softball-baseball, just stay with the concept here and don’t drag me off topic. I am the game master (in the classic grand pooh-bah of role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons, this is known as the Dungeon Master). Not only do I run the game, I create the games before hand. It’s a great challenge and a lot of fun. I am basically writing a storyline without the main characters – only the challenges and mysteries, and my friends come in and complete the story as they go by being the heroes (and often the plucky comic relief).
It is difficult to run the right balance – the challenges that should give people a few tense moments but not be so overwhelming that they feel fatalistic. It’s no fun if they are constantly saved by some higher power. The point of the game is to overcome challenges, perhaps down to your last resources, but to be able to do it in the end. But it’s a challenge I love. I can’t wait to see what my friends are going to do when they get to a certain place. I can’t wait to see their reaction when they come to a particularly interesting area – hopefully something they have never seen before, something that is fun and new and exciting.
So grab some Doritos, some thick, rich, sweet, frozen coffee (or if you prefer Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper are more acceptable norms for this genre), pull out a fresh, blank sheet of lined paper. Buy yourself a set of wicked-cool looking dice of all different shapes. Sharpen your pencil and prepare to open your mind. I think I hear the clash of steel and the neighing of a warhorse. Surely it must be just over that grassy ridge you thought was the back of your couch.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Sunday, October 03, 2004
The Electoral College.
There are few parts of our representative government that are as misunderstood as the Electoral College. When I was taught about this part of the process, I was told the Electoral College existed for two reasons. First, that there were too few people who understood issues back then, so you elected someone to go vote for you. Second, that communication and technology was not what it is, so a procedure for covering the miles needed to be adopted. These reasons are ludicrous when you get right down to it: this is the same era that turned out or founding fathers. Simply assuming that an ancestor is not as smart or capable as you is arrogant. Considering what they accomplished and the means they had it seems to me that as a whole they were more resourceful, more determined, more capable, and more impressive. Additionally, it can be presumed, whoever went to vote in the Electoral College, using whatever technology and transportation was available, could have simply brought the results of the state-wide election to the capitol.
We see a few states (Nevada, Maine, and soon Colorado I think) who have decided (or are deciding) that they should not have their electoral votes go “whole to one side or the other” but rather to split those votes based on the votes in their states. This is a watering down of the intent of the college, which I think is wrong (and I will explain it below) but it does not eliminate its effectiveness wholely.
So, why do I think the Electoral College is so important?
Our country is a whole nation. It is based on a diverse population, diverse politics, perspective, and industry. A great many of us know all too well the issues associated with life in a city. We know daily jobs, we know supermarkets, crime, police, sanitation, etc. A very few of us know any of the issues associated with farming. Or ranching. Or mining. Or providing this nation with wood. All we know is that the food ends up in the supermarket, is usually more expensive than we’d like, and someone else handles the details (including making sure that it meets certain standards). Most of these professions, crucial one might say, to the survival of our country, take up a great deal of space. That precludes the ability to set up a large city in those areas.
What this means is that the large cities are well represented in population, but they may not be well represented in essential professions. Who can claim we do not need food? Or wood? Or metal? Especially if you’re from the city?
The Electoral College gives a voice proportionate more to the true diversity of our nation than to the simple population of our nation. If only those issues that deal with the city were represented, the very support systems that allow those megalopolises to exist would collapse.
Additionally, the Electoral College performs another vital function: it inhibits the ability to brainwash concentrated populations so that pure numbers dictate your policies. We all understand market economics. Where there’s a market, there are people to buy things. Where there’s a bigger market, there are more people. A big city is full of people who are under the constant bombardment of today’s media – print, broadcast, or otherwise. Expression of ideas (right or wrong) there will simply have greater exposure. Manipulation of minds through misrepresented issues is therefore more feasible, and requires fewer resources or effort.
I know that it is purely politics when Senators (who themselves exist in a body designed to give voices disproportionate to population) claim they want to do away with the Electoral College. If the vote is split: popular goes one way, EC the other, partisans are going to be split based on how well that suited their hoped-for outcome. It is ironic that the so-called party of “diversity” is arguing against diversity in a body of the government that underscores diversity. I hope they never do away with this important institution. The fact is there are too many states who rely on it, and for the very good reasons I outlined above.
In the end it isn’t just about the number of voices, it’s about the diversity of our whole nation. Not just diversity in one neighborhood or one city or one state, but the whole nation. Just because you don’t do, or know how to do, or understand the issues revolving around a thing doesn’t mean that thing is unimportant. It could be the different between having a home filled with nice things (and food) and being killed by a neighbor because suddenly there are not enough resources to go around.
We see a few states (Nevada, Maine, and soon Colorado I think) who have decided (or are deciding) that they should not have their electoral votes go “whole to one side or the other” but rather to split those votes based on the votes in their states. This is a watering down of the intent of the college, which I think is wrong (and I will explain it below) but it does not eliminate its effectiveness wholely.
So, why do I think the Electoral College is so important?
Our country is a whole nation. It is based on a diverse population, diverse politics, perspective, and industry. A great many of us know all too well the issues associated with life in a city. We know daily jobs, we know supermarkets, crime, police, sanitation, etc. A very few of us know any of the issues associated with farming. Or ranching. Or mining. Or providing this nation with wood. All we know is that the food ends up in the supermarket, is usually more expensive than we’d like, and someone else handles the details (including making sure that it meets certain standards). Most of these professions, crucial one might say, to the survival of our country, take up a great deal of space. That precludes the ability to set up a large city in those areas.
What this means is that the large cities are well represented in population, but they may not be well represented in essential professions. Who can claim we do not need food? Or wood? Or metal? Especially if you’re from the city?
The Electoral College gives a voice proportionate more to the true diversity of our nation than to the simple population of our nation. If only those issues that deal with the city were represented, the very support systems that allow those megalopolises to exist would collapse.
Additionally, the Electoral College performs another vital function: it inhibits the ability to brainwash concentrated populations so that pure numbers dictate your policies. We all understand market economics. Where there’s a market, there are people to buy things. Where there’s a bigger market, there are more people. A big city is full of people who are under the constant bombardment of today’s media – print, broadcast, or otherwise. Expression of ideas (right or wrong) there will simply have greater exposure. Manipulation of minds through misrepresented issues is therefore more feasible, and requires fewer resources or effort.
I know that it is purely politics when Senators (who themselves exist in a body designed to give voices disproportionate to population) claim they want to do away with the Electoral College. If the vote is split: popular goes one way, EC the other, partisans are going to be split based on how well that suited their hoped-for outcome. It is ironic that the so-called party of “diversity” is arguing against diversity in a body of the government that underscores diversity. I hope they never do away with this important institution. The fact is there are too many states who rely on it, and for the very good reasons I outlined above.
In the end it isn’t just about the number of voices, it’s about the diversity of our whole nation. Not just diversity in one neighborhood or one city or one state, but the whole nation. Just because you don’t do, or know how to do, or understand the issues revolving around a thing doesn’t mean that thing is unimportant. It could be the different between having a home filled with nice things (and food) and being killed by a neighbor because suddenly there are not enough resources to go around.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Creative Politics
No, I’m not talking about how some politicians either take both sides of the issue to be covered on all bases, or to make their single decision sound like it encompasses all people, I’m talking about something more sinister.
I am growing more and more convinced that, for their own ends, people have taken issues that hopped along quietly in the background without controversy and turned them into political hot-button debates designed to split the public into “red” and “blue”.
My theory is that big cities, especially high profile cities like New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (Boston’s population isn’t huge, but it clings tenaciously to the perception that it’s one of the foremost cities in the nation – it is one of my favorite cities for sure, but its own illusionary preeminence could stand to be ripped down a peg or four), are targets for these groups or people. After all, where you have millions of people (again, Boston special case) you are going to find hundreds if not thousands of people who are either 100% malleable or who actually feel strongly that ONLY Peruvian hemp should be used in ropes and any other kind of material is dangerous to the world’s ecology, threatening a complete destruction of all life on the planet.
Thus, in order to gain special interest money, or to hamper efforts of normal citizens attempting to continue our country’s success, they create a special interest group. Some groups have solid facts. Some groups represent ideas that really do make a difference. Most groups are either completely based on junk science or have created controversy over an issue that was not controversial until they stuck their noses in it for their own reasons.
There are many problems with this system, but I think perhaps the gravest, and the one about which I am blogging, is that when you shine the light on these issues, these background “non-controversies”, eventually the fact that your issue is TERRIBLY minor, and supported (or at least tolerated) by perhaps 5% to 15% of the population, causes legislation and restriction to be put into place that decides very much against what you wanted. You end up with LESS freedom and MORE restriction rather than legitimizing your cause.
I believe this is done intentionally and maliciously by those who would undermine our country (and you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe there are well funded groups out there who can afford to spend a little money here or there to get these special interests started). I believe they are successful because what they end up doing is besmirching those who are simply trying to run the country in a sane, logical manner. I believe their theory is that each one of us has a special interest (and if you don’t, God love you, FIND ONE!) and that eventually they will have turned us all against the voice of reason.
That is why it is creative politics. They are creating issues in order to destroy their political adversaries. Next time someone tries to start up a movement to raise awareness about your special interest I hope you give them a swift kick in the ass and point them to the border. They aren’t out for your special interest. They’re out to manipulate you through fear-based anger.
I am growing more and more convinced that, for their own ends, people have taken issues that hopped along quietly in the background without controversy and turned them into political hot-button debates designed to split the public into “red” and “blue”.
My theory is that big cities, especially high profile cities like New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (Boston’s population isn’t huge, but it clings tenaciously to the perception that it’s one of the foremost cities in the nation – it is one of my favorite cities for sure, but its own illusionary preeminence could stand to be ripped down a peg or four), are targets for these groups or people. After all, where you have millions of people (again, Boston special case) you are going to find hundreds if not thousands of people who are either 100% malleable or who actually feel strongly that ONLY Peruvian hemp should be used in ropes and any other kind of material is dangerous to the world’s ecology, threatening a complete destruction of all life on the planet.
Thus, in order to gain special interest money, or to hamper efforts of normal citizens attempting to continue our country’s success, they create a special interest group. Some groups have solid facts. Some groups represent ideas that really do make a difference. Most groups are either completely based on junk science or have created controversy over an issue that was not controversial until they stuck their noses in it for their own reasons.
There are many problems with this system, but I think perhaps the gravest, and the one about which I am blogging, is that when you shine the light on these issues, these background “non-controversies”, eventually the fact that your issue is TERRIBLY minor, and supported (or at least tolerated) by perhaps 5% to 15% of the population, causes legislation and restriction to be put into place that decides very much against what you wanted. You end up with LESS freedom and MORE restriction rather than legitimizing your cause.
I believe this is done intentionally and maliciously by those who would undermine our country (and you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe there are well funded groups out there who can afford to spend a little money here or there to get these special interests started). I believe they are successful because what they end up doing is besmirching those who are simply trying to run the country in a sane, logical manner. I believe their theory is that each one of us has a special interest (and if you don’t, God love you, FIND ONE!) and that eventually they will have turned us all against the voice of reason.
That is why it is creative politics. They are creating issues in order to destroy their political adversaries. Next time someone tries to start up a movement to raise awareness about your special interest I hope you give them a swift kick in the ass and point them to the border. They aren’t out for your special interest. They’re out to manipulate you through fear-based anger.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
The REAL Vietnam Myth.
I am in serious danger of temper unlike any I have ever known.
If you took all of American History and looked for the darkest “event”, the thing that people around the world beat us over the head with more than anything else, would it not be the Vietnam War? If you took every conflict the United States has participated in and drew a picture of the soldier involved, is not that the ONLY war that people draw a negative image? Here at home, have we not completely bought into the concept that this war was an atrocity, a “quagmire”, produced the worst in human nature, exposed normal young men to hell and brought them back as sub-human demons?
I have been developing, since the junior senator from Massechusetts (my birth state, alas) brought Vietnam up again, a surer and surer impression that everything we’ve been told, though history and movies and stories, and all other media from “so-called” news to “so-called” entertainment, is FALSE.
A few very well placed stories, though they were even refuted at their time, allowed a group of people who so desperately WANTED it to be hell and to have something to blame Americans for (some of them, it must be admitted, were Americans, but I do suspect they were cleverly manipulated through encouragement by foreigners who had a vested interest in doing us harm) to build an image on lies.
The truth is at last coming out, and lies are dying the most amazing self-defeating death: because someone got away with it in the past, they are convinced they can get away with it again.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/morse200409150552.asp
These people have, time and again, committed the TRUE worst attrocities. They have materially damaged this country, tarnished our image around the world by fueling our enemies with falsities and outright lies. Done unintentionally or on good faith this is called being a "patsy". Done intentionally or even willfully, it is treason.
Those who would carry the torch to illuminate freedom, and I believe the press is the most powerful of these forces, have an awesome responsibility to seek the TRUTH whether they like what they find or not, not to pass off what they WANT to be as the TRUTH.
I am sickened, and though I do not wish long-term ill on anyone, I would rejoice in the complete implosion of CBS news and it's utter destruction as a news service. Nothing short of this will be a sufficient lesson to the rest. They want the total removal of Enron? So be it. Let us have equality.
If you took all of American History and looked for the darkest “event”, the thing that people around the world beat us over the head with more than anything else, would it not be the Vietnam War? If you took every conflict the United States has participated in and drew a picture of the soldier involved, is not that the ONLY war that people draw a negative image? Here at home, have we not completely bought into the concept that this war was an atrocity, a “quagmire”, produced the worst in human nature, exposed normal young men to hell and brought them back as sub-human demons?
I have been developing, since the junior senator from Massechusetts (my birth state, alas) brought Vietnam up again, a surer and surer impression that everything we’ve been told, though history and movies and stories, and all other media from “so-called” news to “so-called” entertainment, is FALSE.
A few very well placed stories, though they were even refuted at their time, allowed a group of people who so desperately WANTED it to be hell and to have something to blame Americans for (some of them, it must be admitted, were Americans, but I do suspect they were cleverly manipulated through encouragement by foreigners who had a vested interest in doing us harm) to build an image on lies.
The truth is at last coming out, and lies are dying the most amazing self-defeating death: because someone got away with it in the past, they are convinced they can get away with it again.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/morse200409150552.asp
These people have, time and again, committed the TRUE worst attrocities. They have materially damaged this country, tarnished our image around the world by fueling our enemies with falsities and outright lies. Done unintentionally or on good faith this is called being a "patsy". Done intentionally or even willfully, it is treason.
Those who would carry the torch to illuminate freedom, and I believe the press is the most powerful of these forces, have an awesome responsibility to seek the TRUTH whether they like what they find or not, not to pass off what they WANT to be as the TRUTH.
I am sickened, and though I do not wish long-term ill on anyone, I would rejoice in the complete implosion of CBS news and it's utter destruction as a news service. Nothing short of this will be a sufficient lesson to the rest. They want the total removal of Enron? So be it. Let us have equality.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Distinct Tones
No, I'm not talking about cell phones (as distinctive as they are becoming). I'm talking about the opening of the RNC compared to the DNC. As I've maintained on these boards, politics IS my spectator sport of choice. I watched as much coverage of the DNC as I could find, and I'm doing the same with the RNC looking for differences.
The first, obvious difference was the kick-off. The DNC started with Al Gore (who was not only not televised, he was not quoted or talked about afterwards) and with a very somber, down-dragging opening about 9-11 (which, ironically, they said republicans had better not talk about) and Amazing Grace played well but mournfully on a fiddle. The RNC started like Jay Leno, was upbeat and jazzed throughout. We will see how it goes.
This article is by Oliver North about John Kerry. I wanted to put it in before too much time passed. It's pretty much self-explanatory:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ollienorth/on20040827.shtml
The first, obvious difference was the kick-off. The DNC started with Al Gore (who was not only not televised, he was not quoted or talked about afterwards) and with a very somber, down-dragging opening about 9-11 (which, ironically, they said republicans had better not talk about) and Amazing Grace played well but mournfully on a fiddle. The RNC started like Jay Leno, was upbeat and jazzed throughout. We will see how it goes.
This article is by Oliver North about John Kerry. I wanted to put it in before too much time passed. It's pretty much self-explanatory:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ollienorth/on20040827.shtml
Monday, August 30, 2004
Thank you, Greece.
Greece, I am damned proud to share this planet with you. What a spectacular Olympics. The great country of China must actually be opening its eyes wide in wonder how they, despite their size and volume, can follow one of the most amazing games ever put on. I was so enraptured I hardly blogged.
Greece, you should stand up and be proud. You should feel great today (not just because you have your country back after two and a half weeks of eager stampede) and for as long as you dare, I hope you keep that national pride and realize what you have done.
The games were peaceful, they were probably the least scandalous I can recall, they were beautiful, full of stories about SPORTS (what a concept) and I salute you.
I will NOT support your communism, and hope that you awaken from that nightmare (though you may not be communist, your communist party gets too much press and too many votes). I will NOT support China’s communism, though I can’t wait to see the rich culture of their games (and can’t imagine a more secure location for the games than a country of that size and xenophobia). I am sorry you chose to reject the presence of one of our most outstanding, peace-loving citizens though massive protests (of only your communist party, but they were what got worldwide news). But I must in all candor salute your magnificent games. That woman (I can’t pronounce her name, let alone spell it) who made your games possible despite the incredible disarray she inherited so close to the games themselves, should be your national hero.
Greece, you should stand up and be proud. You should feel great today (not just because you have your country back after two and a half weeks of eager stampede) and for as long as you dare, I hope you keep that national pride and realize what you have done.
The games were peaceful, they were probably the least scandalous I can recall, they were beautiful, full of stories about SPORTS (what a concept) and I salute you.
I will NOT support your communism, and hope that you awaken from that nightmare (though you may not be communist, your communist party gets too much press and too many votes). I will NOT support China’s communism, though I can’t wait to see the rich culture of their games (and can’t imagine a more secure location for the games than a country of that size and xenophobia). I am sorry you chose to reject the presence of one of our most outstanding, peace-loving citizens though massive protests (of only your communist party, but they were what got worldwide news). But I must in all candor salute your magnificent games. That woman (I can’t pronounce her name, let alone spell it) who made your games possible despite the incredible disarray she inherited so close to the games themselves, should be your national hero.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
The few Bad Apples
I suppose I really should back off “the media” once in a while. It’s really about a few bad apples. I was watching the Olympics again last night (4 of 26 days done?) and have a few comments:
I absolutely loathe the self-congratulatory, influence-the-judge-or-at-least-the-crowd, presumptuous nature of the fencing “artists” who pump their fists and scream and prance about not when the touch was clear, but when they think they may have lost the point and want to make it look like they’re smarter than everyone else in the room (which backfires, the judges don’t give them the point based on their stupid antics).
However, my point had more to do with the nature of the commentators. We watched fencing, beach volleyball (whoever included that sport should be promoted to demi-god and be given free beer for life), swimming, and gymnastics. All told that means about 10 commentators. Eight of them were reasonable, smart people with a love of their sport, the games, or at least a sense of professionalism. Two of them felt it was their solemn duty to point out every loser and frame every bout as though “look at the disappointment on those faces, to have come so far, to have tried so hard, and to have gotten only Silver.”
Freakin’ bozos. Now, while it is admirable to want to be the best, and to strive for gold, and I AM sure that people recognize the little things they did wrong meant the ultimate goal went to someone else, not only is it the height of rudeness to point out someone else’s suffering, but is it really your job to make the SPECTATORS feel miserable TOO? Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying the games, congratulating the winners, feeling great about the efforts, and appreciating those who actually DID the best job, regardless of where they’re from? I cheer for the home team (and a few personal favorites from other places) and YES I want our guys and gals to come home decorated with gold, but I know my indignation is pure because I didn’t want **** smeared all over our faces by the commentators any more than I wanted derision extolled because WE beat the Aussies in the pool. It didn’t ruin our victory for me, but it took away some of the savor because I had to be embarrassed that these ***holes represent us behind the microphone. How pathetic.
If someone lost with poor grace, that would be one thing. If, however, someone is experiencing a moment of pain because they know their effort was 0.1 seconds too slow, or it was so close the tiny hop-step they took on their dismount meant silver instead of gold, how about letting them feel that pain, letting us sympathize with them, but not trying to out-snide David Spade (which nobody can do anyway) and find the most colorful way to brag to the world that you know what gross thoughts are going through someone else’s mind. They’re out on the floor, ****weed, you’re a loser has-been who is so pathetic as a color commentator nobody can tell why the scores are handed out the way they are and you survive only by making EVERYONE feel miserable. Explain the SPORT ****off, we can ALL see the intensity, the gravity, the emotion on the athletes’ faces. THAT part we understand. The fact that they have to hold a specific position for a certain amount of time, or how their legs are supposed to move, or why a judge might take off a point here or there, or perhaps BOTHER to tell us the starting difficulty score so we understand the final score better.
Blog-rant. Sigh. I may have to turn the sound off next time I watch. I wish there was a "no bozo announcers" channel.
I absolutely loathe the self-congratulatory, influence-the-judge-or-at-least-the-crowd, presumptuous nature of the fencing “artists” who pump their fists and scream and prance about not when the touch was clear, but when they think they may have lost the point and want to make it look like they’re smarter than everyone else in the room (which backfires, the judges don’t give them the point based on their stupid antics).
However, my point had more to do with the nature of the commentators. We watched fencing, beach volleyball (whoever included that sport should be promoted to demi-god and be given free beer for life), swimming, and gymnastics. All told that means about 10 commentators. Eight of them were reasonable, smart people with a love of their sport, the games, or at least a sense of professionalism. Two of them felt it was their solemn duty to point out every loser and frame every bout as though “look at the disappointment on those faces, to have come so far, to have tried so hard, and to have gotten only Silver.”
Freakin’ bozos. Now, while it is admirable to want to be the best, and to strive for gold, and I AM sure that people recognize the little things they did wrong meant the ultimate goal went to someone else, not only is it the height of rudeness to point out someone else’s suffering, but is it really your job to make the SPECTATORS feel miserable TOO? Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying the games, congratulating the winners, feeling great about the efforts, and appreciating those who actually DID the best job, regardless of where they’re from? I cheer for the home team (and a few personal favorites from other places) and YES I want our guys and gals to come home decorated with gold, but I know my indignation is pure because I didn’t want **** smeared all over our faces by the commentators any more than I wanted derision extolled because WE beat the Aussies in the pool. It didn’t ruin our victory for me, but it took away some of the savor because I had to be embarrassed that these ***holes represent us behind the microphone. How pathetic.
If someone lost with poor grace, that would be one thing. If, however, someone is experiencing a moment of pain because they know their effort was 0.1 seconds too slow, or it was so close the tiny hop-step they took on their dismount meant silver instead of gold, how about letting them feel that pain, letting us sympathize with them, but not trying to out-snide David Spade (which nobody can do anyway) and find the most colorful way to brag to the world that you know what gross thoughts are going through someone else’s mind. They’re out on the floor, ****weed, you’re a loser has-been who is so pathetic as a color commentator nobody can tell why the scores are handed out the way they are and you survive only by making EVERYONE feel miserable. Explain the SPORT ****off, we can ALL see the intensity, the gravity, the emotion on the athletes’ faces. THAT part we understand. The fact that they have to hold a specific position for a certain amount of time, or how their legs are supposed to move, or why a judge might take off a point here or there, or perhaps BOTHER to tell us the starting difficulty score so we understand the final score better.
Blog-rant. Sigh. I may have to turn the sound off next time I watch. I wish there was a "no bozo announcers" channel.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
The Olympics
Since the games that were credited in ancient Greece as the First Olympics way back before numbering years itself is creditable, politics have been a part of the Olympics. In those games, the star athlete, as I recall, was killed because the King had suspicions he was getting too celebratory with the Princess. I may have some of my games messed up, but they were originally put on for political expedience (choosing the best, that sort of thing) and even when they restarted in the “modern” era, politics have played almost their own venue at the games. One country boycotting one set of games, another using them as proof of their racial superiority, world wars keeping them from being held at all, bidding wars escalating over who is going to be able to host them, athletes taking the podium and making a political statement in their clothing, attitude or gestures.
I must say, with the notable exception of my own personal Enemy Number One (big-money media) these games have been remarkably a-political as far as the Olympics go. Now, we’re only two full days into the games, so a lot can happen, but my thanks to the countries and athletes participating that the games themselves have been competitive, thrilling to watch, and yet without headline-making scandal.
Yes, two Greek athletes were kicked from the games for what the Olympic Officials call (to my endless amusement) “doping”, and one Iranian refused to play in the games because he drew an Israeli as his first opponent (which, ironically, gives the win to Israel). And yes, though they were stunningly beautiful and an outstanding credit to Greece, the opening ceremony was about 14,527 hours too long. And yes, Bob Costas (who I actually like tolerably well as far as sports casters go) managed to slip in his own personal brand of anti-Americanism (during those very opening ceremonies) because the crowd refused to do so for him. We were, in fact, cheered lustily as we joined the Parade of Nations, but he refused to take it with good grace and attempted to put forward the concept that while Greeks love American athletes, they detest Americans and their political policies, so therefore were proving THEIR superiority by cheering us in stead of booing us because, ostensibly, they can separate politics and games.
This against a backdrop where Hitler used the Olympics to prove their superiority (the first televised games ever, indeed I was taught it the first ever major broadcast of any kind), Palestine took the opportunity of one games to blow up Israeli athletes, first “Western” then “Soviet” countries boycotted each other’s games altogether, black athletes chose to use the Gold and Silver platform for a political statement during the national anthem, I think we can say that (so far, anyway) these games have been all about the sports themselves.
Great rivalries (such as Thorp/Phelps in the pool) and new powers (USA men’s gymnastics first team medal in 20 years – only their second since 1932) are making these games interesting and fun to watch. NBC (though some of the shows they’re trying to advertise are abysmal) has kept its partisan mouth shut (for the most part) and is showing a TON of good coverage, and Greece has been an amazing backdrop.
I look forward to more.
I must say, with the notable exception of my own personal Enemy Number One (big-money media) these games have been remarkably a-political as far as the Olympics go. Now, we’re only two full days into the games, so a lot can happen, but my thanks to the countries and athletes participating that the games themselves have been competitive, thrilling to watch, and yet without headline-making scandal.
Yes, two Greek athletes were kicked from the games for what the Olympic Officials call (to my endless amusement) “doping”, and one Iranian refused to play in the games because he drew an Israeli as his first opponent (which, ironically, gives the win to Israel). And yes, though they were stunningly beautiful and an outstanding credit to Greece, the opening ceremony was about 14,527 hours too long. And yes, Bob Costas (who I actually like tolerably well as far as sports casters go) managed to slip in his own personal brand of anti-Americanism (during those very opening ceremonies) because the crowd refused to do so for him. We were, in fact, cheered lustily as we joined the Parade of Nations, but he refused to take it with good grace and attempted to put forward the concept that while Greeks love American athletes, they detest Americans and their political policies, so therefore were proving THEIR superiority by cheering us in stead of booing us because, ostensibly, they can separate politics and games.
This against a backdrop where Hitler used the Olympics to prove their superiority (the first televised games ever, indeed I was taught it the first ever major broadcast of any kind), Palestine took the opportunity of one games to blow up Israeli athletes, first “Western” then “Soviet” countries boycotted each other’s games altogether, black athletes chose to use the Gold and Silver platform for a political statement during the national anthem, I think we can say that (so far, anyway) these games have been all about the sports themselves.
Great rivalries (such as Thorp/Phelps in the pool) and new powers (USA men’s gymnastics first team medal in 20 years – only their second since 1932) are making these games interesting and fun to watch. NBC (though some of the shows they’re trying to advertise are abysmal) has kept its partisan mouth shut (for the most part) and is showing a TON of good coverage, and Greece has been an amazing backdrop.
I look forward to more.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Yikes, can I say Political Ethics and anyone still read this?
Ok. It came to me in a flash. I know that most people who are “partisan” (which means politically bias for those of you not afflicted with the mind-numbing need to watch politics as avid as any other sport) consider the other party exactly wrong on all issues. I found a decent way to put into words my feelings why “my side of the aisle” believes government is not the solution to an individual’s problems.
It comes down to ethics. Now, this is not going to be an admonishment of anyone’s moral code, so please read on. I think you’ll find yourself understanding my point and it never brings YOUR ethics up (unless you’re a government bureaucrat, though even then it makes allowances).
The very complaint that is lodged against capitalists is that they will screw anyone to make a buck, that without regard for “the little guy” they price gouge or put competitors out of business, all so a few rich people at the head of the company can get richer while they stand upon the shoulders of their poor, whipped workers.
This is, in fact, acting unethically. I think any of us would agree the (admittedly extreme) picture that paints is unethical.
However, there are several safeguards built into the system. You can buy your product from someone else. Don’t like Wal Mart, shop at Target, HEB, K-Mart, Walgreens, your local grocer, etc. Is it “unfair” that Wal Mart has lower prices? No more than it’s “unfair” that HEB has better produce or a more interesting selection. I choose where I go.
The problem comes in when there is a genuine monopoly. Those continue to disappear. It used to be electricity and cable were monopolies. Now deregulation has put competition into electricity and satellite TV (of which there are choices) has taken a huge chunk out of the cable market. Unfortunately, there is no competition for government. Nor, do I think, there should be. Just look at Israel and Palestine. Or Kashmir. Or Taiwan.
The assumptions made about government include the assumption that it, and the various programs it oversees, are going to be run by ethical people. Ok, before you laugh so hard you snort coffee out your nose into your keyboard, this is where I bring it back to my mean-spirited, right-wing attack machine, capitalist blah blah blah blah blah.
Which party promotes smaller government (letting entities like the Salvation Army handle charity style programs) and claims character matters?
Which party promotes larger government with more monopoly-style programs (you think healthcare is bad NOW, wait until you have no choice because it’s all government) AND tells you character isn’t “as important”. It doesn’t matter WHAT they’re doing in their office. It doesn’t matter WHERE they got the money for their campaign. It doesn’t matter that they change their minds more regularly than we change our shirts.
Someone is telling you they’re out to protect you from the greedy “big guy” by setting up an even bigger monopoly run by people who are made less accountable due to the fact that they are part of the very government that is supposed to be watch dogging those people. You think CEOs get protected and special treatment...
Again, it comes down to ethics. If you could assure me you were going to elect people who themselves are not only going to run things ethically but are going to appoint people to run things ethically, I would be less inclined to rail against larger government. The problem “the other side” has is ethical politicians would reduce the size of the government. They have to elect the unethical ones to get their agenda passed.
It comes down to ethics. Now, this is not going to be an admonishment of anyone’s moral code, so please read on. I think you’ll find yourself understanding my point and it never brings YOUR ethics up (unless you’re a government bureaucrat, though even then it makes allowances).
The very complaint that is lodged against capitalists is that they will screw anyone to make a buck, that without regard for “the little guy” they price gouge or put competitors out of business, all so a few rich people at the head of the company can get richer while they stand upon the shoulders of their poor, whipped workers.
This is, in fact, acting unethically. I think any of us would agree the (admittedly extreme) picture that paints is unethical.
However, there are several safeguards built into the system. You can buy your product from someone else. Don’t like Wal Mart, shop at Target, HEB, K-Mart, Walgreens, your local grocer, etc. Is it “unfair” that Wal Mart has lower prices? No more than it’s “unfair” that HEB has better produce or a more interesting selection. I choose where I go.
The problem comes in when there is a genuine monopoly. Those continue to disappear. It used to be electricity and cable were monopolies. Now deregulation has put competition into electricity and satellite TV (of which there are choices) has taken a huge chunk out of the cable market. Unfortunately, there is no competition for government. Nor, do I think, there should be. Just look at Israel and Palestine. Or Kashmir. Or Taiwan.
The assumptions made about government include the assumption that it, and the various programs it oversees, are going to be run by ethical people. Ok, before you laugh so hard you snort coffee out your nose into your keyboard, this is where I bring it back to my mean-spirited, right-wing attack machine, capitalist blah blah blah blah blah.
Which party promotes smaller government (letting entities like the Salvation Army handle charity style programs) and claims character matters?
Which party promotes larger government with more monopoly-style programs (you think healthcare is bad NOW, wait until you have no choice because it’s all government) AND tells you character isn’t “as important”. It doesn’t matter WHAT they’re doing in their office. It doesn’t matter WHERE they got the money for their campaign. It doesn’t matter that they change their minds more regularly than we change our shirts.
Someone is telling you they’re out to protect you from the greedy “big guy” by setting up an even bigger monopoly run by people who are made less accountable due to the fact that they are part of the very government that is supposed to be watch dogging those people. You think CEOs get protected and special treatment...
Again, it comes down to ethics. If you could assure me you were going to elect people who themselves are not only going to run things ethically but are going to appoint people to run things ethically, I would be less inclined to rail against larger government. The problem “the other side” has is ethical politicians would reduce the size of the government. They have to elect the unethical ones to get their agenda passed.
Friday, July 23, 2004
Inappropriate Expectation
I received an e-mail yesterday that put a lot into perspective. I have been thinking about exactly the things in here, but didn't realize there was already a theory about it.
--==<<>>==--
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent
Presidential election: Population of counties won by:
Gore=127 million
Bush=143 million
Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,000
Bush=2,2427,000
States won by:
Gore=19
Bush=29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore=13.2
Bush=2.1
Professor Olson adds:
"In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly
encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."
Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency and "apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
--==<<>>==--
I also liked the e-mail signature from this person (whom I did not know)
“ Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” Thomas Jefferson
--==<<>>==--
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent
Presidential election: Population of counties won by:
Gore=127 million
Bush=143 million
Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,000
Bush=2,2427,000
States won by:
Gore=19
Bush=29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore=13.2
Bush=2.1
Professor Olson adds:
"In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly
encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."
Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency and "apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
--==<<>>==--
I also liked the e-mail signature from this person (whom I did not know)
“ Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” Thomas Jefferson
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Always another skill
I work in the computer industry. It happened somewhat by default, because I have had an aptitude for computers since I was in sixth grade (and if you can’t calculate when that was, I’m not going to blow my image by telling you how ancient I am). Anyway, though I could probably dwarf my other blog entries combined by talking about my career (wow can I blab) it just happened because nobody else in the building at my first long-term job was good with computers. Ten years later I was starting an IT department for a dot-com startup in NYC.
Along the way I learned one important, somewhat ironic thing: there is always another skill you need. At first it was simply how to handle a PC – the cables and plugs, where they went, how to do some easy console commands. Then you needed to know how to take it apart and put pieces in it or take them out. Then you needed to learn how to mess with the configuration files at boot-up, especially how to manage memory – then that some programs wanted one type of memory and others wanted a different type (yikes! a computer has more than one type of memory?) then you needed to be able to explain to a person the difference between active memory and a hard drive or other storage device.
Then came networks, and a whole host of new skills. Networking required knowing not only what a server is, but the various levels of cabling (needing a hub or not, network cards in the machines, drivers to make the cards function, a server or not, software to run the server, how information is parceled up and shared, etc.) Skip several steps and learning requirements to get to the Internet (succinct, be succinct).
After I learned all these various hardware issues, and the amazing politics of being a middle manager, I left the computer “support” world to become a programmer. WOW are there levels here. It sure helped to have a background in support, because every project required something new. Because I had skill in Access, I was suddenly billed as a “visual basic” expert. Because I’d actually held the boxes in which both Novell and Windows NT had come in, I was the only one with experience in “both”. So I needed to learn both, and Visual Basic, but they were really only useful for one project. The next project was in Cold Fusion (a server-side product for the Internet). The next was in ASP (a competing project). One used IBM’s database. The next MySQL. Most of them used HTML, but some crequired C++, some Java, and some Visual Basic Scripting. Then I got into Neverwinter Nights and needed to learn a proprietary version of C++.
Now, because of what I want to accomplish, I have actually had to teach myself 3D modeling. But because I learned my first 3D moves in “Maya”, and the Neverwinter Nights files only translate into 3D Studio Max, I had to learn 3DS Max too.
But don’t worry, the fact that I am rated by a recruiter as an “expert” in HTML, SQL Syntax, WindowsNT, Novell, Cold Fusion, Visual Basic, C++, Java, VB Scripting, MySQL, Microsoft support (like Office), hardware support, networking (physical and digital), Maya, 3D Studio Max, DOS, Clairvoyance, Basket Weaving, and Management Relations, none of that will actually apply to my next computer need. Which will doubtless require me to learn the intricacies of IP packets or vacuum tube construction.
My frustration isn’t so much that there’s always something new to learn, but that after you spend three months beating your head against the latest new thing, not only does whoever write the paycheck complain that it took you so damned long, your knowledge is immediately obsolete because you will never use it again. You need to learn something new next time.
So. Here’s to all that coffee that keeps us going. I’m headed back into 3DS to keep making these cool graphics.
Along the way I learned one important, somewhat ironic thing: there is always another skill you need. At first it was simply how to handle a PC – the cables and plugs, where they went, how to do some easy console commands. Then you needed to know how to take it apart and put pieces in it or take them out. Then you needed to learn how to mess with the configuration files at boot-up, especially how to manage memory – then that some programs wanted one type of memory and others wanted a different type (yikes! a computer has more than one type of memory?) then you needed to be able to explain to a person the difference between active memory and a hard drive or other storage device.
Then came networks, and a whole host of new skills. Networking required knowing not only what a server is, but the various levels of cabling (needing a hub or not, network cards in the machines, drivers to make the cards function, a server or not, software to run the server, how information is parceled up and shared, etc.) Skip several steps and learning requirements to get to the Internet (succinct, be succinct).
After I learned all these various hardware issues, and the amazing politics of being a middle manager, I left the computer “support” world to become a programmer. WOW are there levels here. It sure helped to have a background in support, because every project required something new. Because I had skill in Access, I was suddenly billed as a “visual basic” expert. Because I’d actually held the boxes in which both Novell and Windows NT had come in, I was the only one with experience in “both”. So I needed to learn both, and Visual Basic, but they were really only useful for one project. The next project was in Cold Fusion (a server-side product for the Internet). The next was in ASP (a competing project). One used IBM’s database. The next MySQL. Most of them used HTML, but some crequired C++, some Java, and some Visual Basic Scripting. Then I got into Neverwinter Nights and needed to learn a proprietary version of C++.
Now, because of what I want to accomplish, I have actually had to teach myself 3D modeling. But because I learned my first 3D moves in “Maya”, and the Neverwinter Nights files only translate into 3D Studio Max, I had to learn 3DS Max too.
But don’t worry, the fact that I am rated by a recruiter as an “expert” in HTML, SQL Syntax, WindowsNT, Novell, Cold Fusion, Visual Basic, C++, Java, VB Scripting, MySQL, Microsoft support (like Office), hardware support, networking (physical and digital), Maya, 3D Studio Max, DOS, Clairvoyance, Basket Weaving, and Management Relations, none of that will actually apply to my next computer need. Which will doubtless require me to learn the intricacies of IP packets or vacuum tube construction.
My frustration isn’t so much that there’s always something new to learn, but that after you spend three months beating your head against the latest new thing, not only does whoever write the paycheck complain that it took you so damned long, your knowledge is immediately obsolete because you will never use it again. You need to learn something new next time.
So. Here’s to all that coffee that keeps us going. I’m headed back into 3DS to keep making these cool graphics.
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Life a'int short, pal.
Ok. Time to do some Cliché Culling. Life really isn’t short. It came to me as I was considering why someone I know can’t sit still through anything. He loves the part of GOING to do something, say, a movie, but as soon as the movie actually starts, he’s squirming in his seat and ready for the movie to be over. He likes the idea of getting in the truck, but can’t stand sitting while you go anywhere. He likes the idea of playing a game, but if it isn’t paced faster than speed metal compressed to time-and-a-half, he’s ready for it to be over.
I think this is a symptom of “life is too short” syndrome. So where does this syndrome come from? Ugh. I called it a syndrome. Someone could make a cottage industry out of Life Is Too Short Therapy. I hate that.
Believe me, I am all for capitalism. I think free markets are the ONLY way to keep power in the hands of the PEOPLE rather than dictators. However, I think with free enterprise comes a measure of responsibility that the ignoramus or the unscrupulous are not prepared to deal with. Do I think they need government regulation? No. I will come to my solution in a little bit but I don’t want to turn people off that fast.
I think the problem is that we’re letting “pop culture” define us rather than us defining our pop culture. A little thing catches on (dark humor in commercials) and suddenly everyone thinks all commercials, to be successful, need dark humor. The damage that is done is seen in things like “life is too short” syndrome. It’s a catchy phrase and gets plastered all over the place, but what it does is cause a frantic fear of death manifested in frenetic instability and short attention spans. In other words, if we’re not getting maximum gratification NOW, we’d better stop what we’re doing and try something else.
The fact of the matter is, though people may look at our lifespan and say “wow, I’m going to die before Star Trek comes to pass! I’m a loser mortal with a speck of time to live, and I won’t get ANYTHING done of importance – I’m insignificant and I need someone to blame, or a ‘lucky shot’ to make me significant”.
Yet, how many of us sit for hours on end either bored out of our skull, watching re-runs or movies that we don’t really care to see again (some are worth it, but how many times do we think we’re wasting our time ‘this time’?), or playing hours on end of solitaire because we want something mindless and at least somewhat gratifying (hey, if I’m lucky, those cards will bounce – nobody will KNOW it but me, but I WON!!).
I’m not saying we shouldn’t take time to play silly computer games. Rather the opposite. We should recognize that, since we CAN, life is not only plenty long, there are hours and hours to fritter away every week. Ok, some weeks are so packed full all we want to do is go to bed, but in general every week has several hours in it (sometimes evenly across the evenings, sometimes packed into one ‘lost’ Saturday afternoon) in which we have no plans.
Relax. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself for just a few moments and listen. Let your mind clear as much as possible (this is actually one of the toughest skills in life, I believe) and then see if one of those quiet little voices that’s been nagging at you comes out. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to gather all the pictures of my last vacation and write some good captions to go with them.” “Oooo... I wanted to wash the truck yesterday, make it sparkle, but I was in the middle of a long, boring meeting with that sloth the company appointed to be my division manager.” “Oh! I have hoped to pull out that old Rush album and listen to it again.” Some things that come up may be chores, some things may cost money “That’s it! I wanted to go see what new Lego sets were at Toys’r’us! I could go to the toy store!”, some things may seem like a waste of time. However, they are things that you wanted to do that you didn’t get to. Realize you CAN get to everything. Write that book. Draw that picture. Buy that modeling clay and make something.
I carry a little notepad around with me. It’s in one of those small zipper containers that looks like a Day-Timer wannabe. I take it into movies, I take it to my kids’ gymnastics classes, I take it to meetings, I take it to the park. It’s not heavy, and it’s not big. If I think of something I want to do but can’t at the moment, I write it down. Since I love writing so much, often what I want to do IS write, so I can do that right then and there.
Ok. So what is the solution to pop culture I was talking about? Now, I don’t think you can get rid of pop culture. It’s a concept, really. I would define it as parcel-glimpses into what is attractive to our society at large. My contention was that we’re letting those parcel-glimpses get out of hand and define what is attractive instead of what is attractive defining the successful parcel-glimpses. What is it that fortifies us, makes it so WE define pop culture instead of pop culture defining US? We need to be strong and self-assured. We need to not only believe we know when something is influencing us, but we need to believe we can turn off its influence. We need to believe we are stronger than a clever marketer. Not that we don’t need products and services, but that we have the strength to buy (or buy into) only what we truly want or need, not what someone else is trying to make us think we want or need.
The answer is religion. Whether it is Hindu, Moslem, Christian, Hebrew, Shinto, Buddhism, Therapy-ism, or whatever, it is actually designed to help us recognize right from wrong. People can set up awful prey-upon-the-weak industries in the NAME of religion, but I’m not talking about the organized institutions ostensibly set up to perpetuate religion. I’m talking about the religion itself. Some of them don’t agree on God (ok, none of them really agree on God) and many of them appear to be at direct odds with each other. But when you get down to it, every major religion in the world says specifically that you should try to get along with and live peaceably with all your neighbors, be they of another religion or yours.
In one sense, religion is the study that there is another power apart from pop culture and peer pressure. The other thing every major religion deals with is our tenure here. Whether they preach of a promised paradise in after-life or they teach that life itself is eternal and all around us is allegorical, mystifying illusion, they talk of more than the “short span” we fear here. Now, whether you believe they’re right or wrong, whether you believe they’re brainwashing or re-directing attention, one important thing happens:
You take your panicked attention of the supposed short-term of your life. The nice surprise? You may look up from your fulfilled life and realize you have accomplished all sorts of stuff, and have PLENTY of time left to do more.
The danger, or “wrongness” (I prefer that word to the mis-understood “sin”) of instant gratification is that it pre-supposes there is no set-up or build-up to gratification, that there is no pleasure in the set-up or build-up to gratification, and even tries to dim the fact that gratification is GREATER if one has done the set-up or build-up.
Try living without your cell-phone for a month. I did and I haven’t had one for years. Not only do I feel I have plenty going on, and therefore that a cell phone is not vital to my success, but I have re-learned not only to trust others (that they will follow a plan without constant goading or progress reports) but to trust myself as well (that I will follow OR MAKE a plan without constant tweaking, poking, prodding, changing, nudging, or assuring others that I’m doing it). I also get a HELL of a lot more done.
Don’t become a victim of the dark parts of pop culture.
I think this is a symptom of “life is too short” syndrome. So where does this syndrome come from? Ugh. I called it a syndrome. Someone could make a cottage industry out of Life Is Too Short Therapy. I hate that.
Believe me, I am all for capitalism. I think free markets are the ONLY way to keep power in the hands of the PEOPLE rather than dictators. However, I think with free enterprise comes a measure of responsibility that the ignoramus or the unscrupulous are not prepared to deal with. Do I think they need government regulation? No. I will come to my solution in a little bit but I don’t want to turn people off that fast.
I think the problem is that we’re letting “pop culture” define us rather than us defining our pop culture. A little thing catches on (dark humor in commercials) and suddenly everyone thinks all commercials, to be successful, need dark humor. The damage that is done is seen in things like “life is too short” syndrome. It’s a catchy phrase and gets plastered all over the place, but what it does is cause a frantic fear of death manifested in frenetic instability and short attention spans. In other words, if we’re not getting maximum gratification NOW, we’d better stop what we’re doing and try something else.
The fact of the matter is, though people may look at our lifespan and say “wow, I’m going to die before Star Trek comes to pass! I’m a loser mortal with a speck of time to live, and I won’t get ANYTHING done of importance – I’m insignificant and I need someone to blame, or a ‘lucky shot’ to make me significant”.
Yet, how many of us sit for hours on end either bored out of our skull, watching re-runs or movies that we don’t really care to see again (some are worth it, but how many times do we think we’re wasting our time ‘this time’?), or playing hours on end of solitaire because we want something mindless and at least somewhat gratifying (hey, if I’m lucky, those cards will bounce – nobody will KNOW it but me, but I WON!!).
I’m not saying we shouldn’t take time to play silly computer games. Rather the opposite. We should recognize that, since we CAN, life is not only plenty long, there are hours and hours to fritter away every week. Ok, some weeks are so packed full all we want to do is go to bed, but in general every week has several hours in it (sometimes evenly across the evenings, sometimes packed into one ‘lost’ Saturday afternoon) in which we have no plans.
Relax. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself for just a few moments and listen. Let your mind clear as much as possible (this is actually one of the toughest skills in life, I believe) and then see if one of those quiet little voices that’s been nagging at you comes out. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to gather all the pictures of my last vacation and write some good captions to go with them.” “Oooo... I wanted to wash the truck yesterday, make it sparkle, but I was in the middle of a long, boring meeting with that sloth the company appointed to be my division manager.” “Oh! I have hoped to pull out that old Rush album and listen to it again.” Some things that come up may be chores, some things may cost money “That’s it! I wanted to go see what new Lego sets were at Toys’r’us! I could go to the toy store!”, some things may seem like a waste of time. However, they are things that you wanted to do that you didn’t get to. Realize you CAN get to everything. Write that book. Draw that picture. Buy that modeling clay and make something.
I carry a little notepad around with me. It’s in one of those small zipper containers that looks like a Day-Timer wannabe. I take it into movies, I take it to my kids’ gymnastics classes, I take it to meetings, I take it to the park. It’s not heavy, and it’s not big. If I think of something I want to do but can’t at the moment, I write it down. Since I love writing so much, often what I want to do IS write, so I can do that right then and there.
Ok. So what is the solution to pop culture I was talking about? Now, I don’t think you can get rid of pop culture. It’s a concept, really. I would define it as parcel-glimpses into what is attractive to our society at large. My contention was that we’re letting those parcel-glimpses get out of hand and define what is attractive instead of what is attractive defining the successful parcel-glimpses. What is it that fortifies us, makes it so WE define pop culture instead of pop culture defining US? We need to be strong and self-assured. We need to not only believe we know when something is influencing us, but we need to believe we can turn off its influence. We need to believe we are stronger than a clever marketer. Not that we don’t need products and services, but that we have the strength to buy (or buy into) only what we truly want or need, not what someone else is trying to make us think we want or need.
The answer is religion. Whether it is Hindu, Moslem, Christian, Hebrew, Shinto, Buddhism, Therapy-ism, or whatever, it is actually designed to help us recognize right from wrong. People can set up awful prey-upon-the-weak industries in the NAME of religion, but I’m not talking about the organized institutions ostensibly set up to perpetuate religion. I’m talking about the religion itself. Some of them don’t agree on God (ok, none of them really agree on God) and many of them appear to be at direct odds with each other. But when you get down to it, every major religion in the world says specifically that you should try to get along with and live peaceably with all your neighbors, be they of another religion or yours.
In one sense, religion is the study that there is another power apart from pop culture and peer pressure. The other thing every major religion deals with is our tenure here. Whether they preach of a promised paradise in after-life or they teach that life itself is eternal and all around us is allegorical, mystifying illusion, they talk of more than the “short span” we fear here. Now, whether you believe they’re right or wrong, whether you believe they’re brainwashing or re-directing attention, one important thing happens:
You take your panicked attention of the supposed short-term of your life. The nice surprise? You may look up from your fulfilled life and realize you have accomplished all sorts of stuff, and have PLENTY of time left to do more.
The danger, or “wrongness” (I prefer that word to the mis-understood “sin”) of instant gratification is that it pre-supposes there is no set-up or build-up to gratification, that there is no pleasure in the set-up or build-up to gratification, and even tries to dim the fact that gratification is GREATER if one has done the set-up or build-up.
Try living without your cell-phone for a month. I did and I haven’t had one for years. Not only do I feel I have plenty going on, and therefore that a cell phone is not vital to my success, but I have re-learned not only to trust others (that they will follow a plan without constant goading or progress reports) but to trust myself as well (that I will follow OR MAKE a plan without constant tweaking, poking, prodding, changing, nudging, or assuring others that I’m doing it). I also get a HELL of a lot more done.
Don’t become a victim of the dark parts of pop culture.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
The Economy Thing I Promised.
Ok. Picking up where I left off, there is the suppression angle. This can be confusing, but I’m going to say it anyway. There are several kinds of “revenue models”. A few are: profit, non-profit, regulated, and governmental (for lack of knowing the right term, which might be called “forced or involuntary non-profit”).
In profit, the model is simple. You pay out overhead (materials, labor, facilities) and you charge for the product you deliver (be it a good or service). The difference between what you charge and what you pay out is the money you keep. This system thrives on competition, and where competition is lacking, it can be tough on the consumer.
In non-profit, the model is also simple. It is as above, though you attempt to match your charge and pay out as closely as possible so you keep your prices low. You are also allowed to accept “donations”, which is in essence receiving capital without producing a product or service (or the payee has you give that good or service to someone else).
In the regulated model we start to get more complex. I used to work for a utility company in San Diego. It was a regulated business. That is, because electricity was a monopoly, the government stepped in and regulated how much the company could charge so they didn’t gouge their clients (the theory being that you can’t get your electricity from somewhere else, so they could charge whatever they wanted). The government solved this by stating before the year started how much the company could “make”. They’d say, for example, you can have a 25% profit over materials. Or (and my math is not perfect here but illustrates close enough), if you spent at total of $75 Millon on materials (fuel, power stations, etc.) you were allowed to charge a total of $100 Million across all your customers. You had to fit your labor costs and other expenses into that $25 Million margin, and you could be given “bonuses” if you proved you had worked more efficiently or done certain environmental things. Thus, you actually made profits by being more efficient, not by producing more or servicing better or charging higher rates. This is a simplified model with some flaws, but close enough for this illustration.
Finally, governments operate on a percentage tax basis. That is to say, They get a percentage of the income of every citizen and business in its country. Let’s over-simplify and say it’s 20% (its way higher than that for “rich” people and companies, and way lower than that for “poor” people and companies). You would think that it would behoove the government to have a thriving economy where people are making as much money as possible. Thus, they would bring in more taxes. The more money you make, the more money they make. Right?
Here’s the problem. There is a perception that “ceteris paribus” applies to income. There is a narrowed outlook, and it is preyed upon by a certain segment of society. The government promotes the idea that if it needs more money, it should raise taxes. After all, if you want all the programs the government provides (welfares in the form of direct giving or medical subsidy, services in the form of roads and regulations, defense of our country, etc.) you need to fork over and pay for them. We understand the fork over and pay for it concept. We can see it. We can put our hands on it. Or, at least, we can see it as others put their hands on it.
Unfortunately, not “all other factors remain the same”. Let’s say the simplified tax rate is 20% across the population (just bear with me here, I know it’s actually higher), and taxes are increased to 25%. What happens? A company that is breaking even has to lay off workers. After all, they can’t sell equipment for regular income, they can’t suddenly force people to buy more, and they can’t raise THEIR prices without affecting the number of products and services they sell. So let’s say three workers get laid off. Two “blue” and one “white” collar. The net loss of those workers in direct taxed income is (again in the simple model) equivalent to the increase on TWELVE other people. Reverse that in simplistic terms, and with the HIRING of three people, you have the tax benefit of reducing taxes on TWELVE.
Now, before you get mad at the simplistic angle and say I’m an incompetent boob, here comes my entire point.
We’re talking about disposable income. Consider how much disposable income YOU have. That is, money you have left over every month. You know, that isn’t committed to anything. If the government increases taxes, that amount is going to shrink (unless it’s already negative). If the government decreases taxes, that amount is going to grow. If you have $100/month in disposable income (please don’t laugh, just go with me here) and the government increases taxes on your $50,000 income from the current 25% to 30%, you have to come up with $2500 more across the year. That’s just over $200/month.
Now... let’s say the government REDUCES taxes 5% instead. Your disposable income goes from $100/month to OVER $300 A MONTH. How many of you are already spending that money in your head. Saying to yourself: “wow, I would build a deck, buy a new entertainment center, get a new computer, go on vacations... think about it, in three months, if you saved your extra each month, you’d have $1000. Trust me, I was in this position a few months ago, and we had a great plan on the things we were going to do – and we did it!
Where does that money go? Into more companies, who have to hire more people, who have to pay them better to keep them from other companies who are hiring, all of whom pay taxes. Not to mention the companies THEMSELVES are paying more taxes, even if they DON’T hire more people, because they are taxed on their profits too. And higher than you are. So the $200 the government would have gotten 25% out of from you is $200 the government is going to get 35% out of when it’s extra profits for a company.
I know all this is simplistic, but here’s the sinister part of all this. When you realize that after every major tax cut in history the government has ended up with MORE money instead of less, there is only one reason to actually increase taxes, or at least only one reason NOT to decrease taxes. To remove your disposable income. After all, when you get right down to it, that kind of money changes your mood. Scared, panicked, or angry people are much easier to manipulate than happy, healthy, well-adjusted people.
I don’t think there’s some Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy out there, I think it’s done by a bunch of individuals, with the same goals, who aren’t so much helping each other or doing these things in a targeted, goal-oriented, sinister way, but rather it is just one step ahead of being subconscious. They’re doing it because it makes their jobs easier.
Heads up for the “work ethic” observation in a post coming soon. Warning, these posts are going to become tougher and tougher to read, not easier. I will probably be blogged right out of a readership.
In profit, the model is simple. You pay out overhead (materials, labor, facilities) and you charge for the product you deliver (be it a good or service). The difference between what you charge and what you pay out is the money you keep. This system thrives on competition, and where competition is lacking, it can be tough on the consumer.
In non-profit, the model is also simple. It is as above, though you attempt to match your charge and pay out as closely as possible so you keep your prices low. You are also allowed to accept “donations”, which is in essence receiving capital without producing a product or service (or the payee has you give that good or service to someone else).
In the regulated model we start to get more complex. I used to work for a utility company in San Diego. It was a regulated business. That is, because electricity was a monopoly, the government stepped in and regulated how much the company could charge so they didn’t gouge their clients (the theory being that you can’t get your electricity from somewhere else, so they could charge whatever they wanted). The government solved this by stating before the year started how much the company could “make”. They’d say, for example, you can have a 25% profit over materials. Or (and my math is not perfect here but illustrates close enough), if you spent at total of $75 Millon on materials (fuel, power stations, etc.) you were allowed to charge a total of $100 Million across all your customers. You had to fit your labor costs and other expenses into that $25 Million margin, and you could be given “bonuses” if you proved you had worked more efficiently or done certain environmental things. Thus, you actually made profits by being more efficient, not by producing more or servicing better or charging higher rates. This is a simplified model with some flaws, but close enough for this illustration.
Finally, governments operate on a percentage tax basis. That is to say, They get a percentage of the income of every citizen and business in its country. Let’s over-simplify and say it’s 20% (its way higher than that for “rich” people and companies, and way lower than that for “poor” people and companies). You would think that it would behoove the government to have a thriving economy where people are making as much money as possible. Thus, they would bring in more taxes. The more money you make, the more money they make. Right?
Here’s the problem. There is a perception that “ceteris paribus” applies to income. There is a narrowed outlook, and it is preyed upon by a certain segment of society. The government promotes the idea that if it needs more money, it should raise taxes. After all, if you want all the programs the government provides (welfares in the form of direct giving or medical subsidy, services in the form of roads and regulations, defense of our country, etc.) you need to fork over and pay for them. We understand the fork over and pay for it concept. We can see it. We can put our hands on it. Or, at least, we can see it as others put their hands on it.
Unfortunately, not “all other factors remain the same”. Let’s say the simplified tax rate is 20% across the population (just bear with me here, I know it’s actually higher), and taxes are increased to 25%. What happens? A company that is breaking even has to lay off workers. After all, they can’t sell equipment for regular income, they can’t suddenly force people to buy more, and they can’t raise THEIR prices without affecting the number of products and services they sell. So let’s say three workers get laid off. Two “blue” and one “white” collar. The net loss of those workers in direct taxed income is (again in the simple model) equivalent to the increase on TWELVE other people. Reverse that in simplistic terms, and with the HIRING of three people, you have the tax benefit of reducing taxes on TWELVE.
Now, before you get mad at the simplistic angle and say I’m an incompetent boob, here comes my entire point.
We’re talking about disposable income. Consider how much disposable income YOU have. That is, money you have left over every month. You know, that isn’t committed to anything. If the government increases taxes, that amount is going to shrink (unless it’s already negative). If the government decreases taxes, that amount is going to grow. If you have $100/month in disposable income (please don’t laugh, just go with me here) and the government increases taxes on your $50,000 income from the current 25% to 30%, you have to come up with $2500 more across the year. That’s just over $200/month.
Now... let’s say the government REDUCES taxes 5% instead. Your disposable income goes from $100/month to OVER $300 A MONTH. How many of you are already spending that money in your head. Saying to yourself: “wow, I would build a deck, buy a new entertainment center, get a new computer, go on vacations... think about it, in three months, if you saved your extra each month, you’d have $1000. Trust me, I was in this position a few months ago, and we had a great plan on the things we were going to do – and we did it!
Where does that money go? Into more companies, who have to hire more people, who have to pay them better to keep them from other companies who are hiring, all of whom pay taxes. Not to mention the companies THEMSELVES are paying more taxes, even if they DON’T hire more people, because they are taxed on their profits too. And higher than you are. So the $200 the government would have gotten 25% out of from you is $200 the government is going to get 35% out of when it’s extra profits for a company.
I know all this is simplistic, but here’s the sinister part of all this. When you realize that after every major tax cut in history the government has ended up with MORE money instead of less, there is only one reason to actually increase taxes, or at least only one reason NOT to decrease taxes. To remove your disposable income. After all, when you get right down to it, that kind of money changes your mood. Scared, panicked, or angry people are much easier to manipulate than happy, healthy, well-adjusted people.
I don’t think there’s some Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy out there, I think it’s done by a bunch of individuals, with the same goals, who aren’t so much helping each other or doing these things in a targeted, goal-oriented, sinister way, but rather it is just one step ahead of being subconscious. They’re doing it because it makes their jobs easier.
Heads up for the “work ethic” observation in a post coming soon. Warning, these posts are going to become tougher and tougher to read, not easier. I will probably be blogged right out of a readership.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Why America Bash?
First, let me clear one thing up. I am not convinced that the whole world America-bashes. I am not convinced there is seething hatred in every non-American’s heart for citizens of the United States of America. And, I think in this context people are talking about the USA, not the Western Hemisphere. However, we see a lot of stories about it – how Anti-Americanism is on the rise. Of course, the irony of it is, “on the rise” means other countries are only catching up with the size of our own wacko contingents, who are themselves Americans even as they bash Americans.
Nevertheless, let’s assume for the moment there IS Anti-USA building out there. Why would that be? What is it about a nation that promotes freedom, does 94% of the world’s charitable giving (according to the UN) and uses our might to give power to the “little people”?
If you haven’t figured it out... it’s that last thing.
There are a couple subtle concepts at work here, but see if they make sense to you.
First, I believe that people naturally tend to think everyone else’s life is largely like their own – or at least they try to put other people’s lives into their framework. How this applies is that we tend to think, for example, that because our “press” or news media is free, unbounded, and often completely out of control, every society’s news media or press is equally independent of its government. And we tend to quote those sources as though they were that free.
Second, if you consider it is possible (and I think it’s a lot more than “possible”) that governments outside our own exert more pressure on their news outlets (or outright control in many places) it becomes possible that there are government-based reasons for the news stories we see. We hear constantly that leaders support our initiatives, but then go to their news media and bash us “for public consumption”.
I think that’s sick, personally. Their own terms suggest they’re FEEDING these lies to their own people. Why would they do that? I think the concept is marginally complex, but boils down to this:
People see how free and wealthy we are as a people, and how powerful as a nation, and they feel inferior or even outright miserable by comparison. They need a reason for this disparity. They are told they need someone to blame, or they need a reason why we are worse than they are, because world leaders recognize we are the most dangerous thing to their positions. Unless they’re actually attempting to give power to the people, to promote the kinds of free enterprise and democracy that got us where WE are, they are suppressing their own people and are in danger of being exposed. If people thought we were RIGHT, they would demand changes until they could do what we’re doing (and believe me, we would not be the only superpower if more nations instituted capitalism over socialism).
So why would world leaders want to promote the USA as vile, when instead they could increase their country’s power (and ostensibly their own) by focusing instead on improving their own country? Yes, it would require that they admit they’ve been wrong, which they probably think they can’t get away with (though I think they could in a BIG way if they showed results to their people) but even more there is another irony: the power that the President has carries more responsibility and more scrutiny than any other leader in the world. The leader of a country, like (say) France can get away with increasing personal power and wealth through (say) illegal deals with dictators and tyrants like (say) Saddam Hussein.
Lastly, there is the suppression angle. This can be confusing, but I’m going to say it anyway. There are several kinds of “revenue models”. The four I can think of are: profit, non-profit, regulated, and governmental (for lack of knowing the right term, which might be called “forced or involuntary non-profit”). This post has gotten out of hand, so I will write the next one up and attempt to explain in my next entry. It is technically part of the America-Bash phenomenon, but there is enough here that I think I have explained my point:
People tell us we’ve brought this hatred upon ourselves, and in a way they are right. We are successful, we have given ourselves the tools to succeed, and we have refused to give in to suppression. Additionally, we have a section of our free population that spews out despicable imagery about our own country (false imagery, I am convinced) but it is distributed to the whole world, who then believes that all we are is what they’ve seen on that screen.
However, I contend that the real reason is world leaders promote America-Bashing (and it gets picked up by media outlets) because they can’t afford to have their own people admiring us and demanding that their countries emulate those parts of us which would make the people stronger. They require misery (it’s a term called “immiseration”) to focus the public’s attention, to keep them incapable of doing without an overseeing government, and (in short) to keep themselves in power.
Nevertheless, let’s assume for the moment there IS Anti-USA building out there. Why would that be? What is it about a nation that promotes freedom, does 94% of the world’s charitable giving (according to the UN) and uses our might to give power to the “little people”?
If you haven’t figured it out... it’s that last thing.
There are a couple subtle concepts at work here, but see if they make sense to you.
First, I believe that people naturally tend to think everyone else’s life is largely like their own – or at least they try to put other people’s lives into their framework. How this applies is that we tend to think, for example, that because our “press” or news media is free, unbounded, and often completely out of control, every society’s news media or press is equally independent of its government. And we tend to quote those sources as though they were that free.
Second, if you consider it is possible (and I think it’s a lot more than “possible”) that governments outside our own exert more pressure on their news outlets (or outright control in many places) it becomes possible that there are government-based reasons for the news stories we see. We hear constantly that leaders support our initiatives, but then go to their news media and bash us “for public consumption”.
I think that’s sick, personally. Their own terms suggest they’re FEEDING these lies to their own people. Why would they do that? I think the concept is marginally complex, but boils down to this:
People see how free and wealthy we are as a people, and how powerful as a nation, and they feel inferior or even outright miserable by comparison. They need a reason for this disparity. They are told they need someone to blame, or they need a reason why we are worse than they are, because world leaders recognize we are the most dangerous thing to their positions. Unless they’re actually attempting to give power to the people, to promote the kinds of free enterprise and democracy that got us where WE are, they are suppressing their own people and are in danger of being exposed. If people thought we were RIGHT, they would demand changes until they could do what we’re doing (and believe me, we would not be the only superpower if more nations instituted capitalism over socialism).
So why would world leaders want to promote the USA as vile, when instead they could increase their country’s power (and ostensibly their own) by focusing instead on improving their own country? Yes, it would require that they admit they’ve been wrong, which they probably think they can’t get away with (though I think they could in a BIG way if they showed results to their people) but even more there is another irony: the power that the President has carries more responsibility and more scrutiny than any other leader in the world. The leader of a country, like (say) France can get away with increasing personal power and wealth through (say) illegal deals with dictators and tyrants like (say) Saddam Hussein.
Lastly, there is the suppression angle. This can be confusing, but I’m going to say it anyway. There are several kinds of “revenue models”. The four I can think of are: profit, non-profit, regulated, and governmental (for lack of knowing the right term, which might be called “forced or involuntary non-profit”). This post has gotten out of hand, so I will write the next one up and attempt to explain in my next entry. It is technically part of the America-Bash phenomenon, but there is enough here that I think I have explained my point:
People tell us we’ve brought this hatred upon ourselves, and in a way they are right. We are successful, we have given ourselves the tools to succeed, and we have refused to give in to suppression. Additionally, we have a section of our free population that spews out despicable imagery about our own country (false imagery, I am convinced) but it is distributed to the whole world, who then believes that all we are is what they’ve seen on that screen.
However, I contend that the real reason is world leaders promote America-Bashing (and it gets picked up by media outlets) because they can’t afford to have their own people admiring us and demanding that their countries emulate those parts of us which would make the people stronger. They require misery (it’s a term called “immiseration”) to focus the public’s attention, to keep them incapable of doing without an overseeing government, and (in short) to keep themselves in power.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Our kids: The Exciting Prospect of Mankind?
Instead of posting the entire article here on the blog, I am going to seriously encourage you to read the link of "hope" at the bottom of this entry. I remember someone close to me once asked, since each generation rebelled against the previous, and in particular through their music, could we possibly imagine what our children would listen to? I remember I answered something to the effect that they would rebel by refusing to be rebels, but rather by liking our music. The reply was a frustrated frown and the query how could that possibly be a rebellion? I said because we considered it OUR music and they would take it away from us (face it, once a teenager claims something, they can out-hip us five ways to Sunday without stopping at Denny's). They would rebel by liking us and being likeable.
I didn’t understand it back then (this must have been 20 years ago, yikes!!) but what I think I’m saying is that because there would be those among us who wanted to justify our own rebellion by pointing to our kids and saying “all kids rebel, we were just kids” our kids would deny us that justification. Additionally, I think (though the phrase had not been coined then) I saw then that our kids would carry off the ultimate dig: they would take away from us the chance to be the next “greatest generation” by so clearly being ready to overshadow us.
I’m not talking about kids being perfect little angels. My own kids argue, they do things wrong, they hide candy in their room, they get suspended from the school bus... rebellion goes much deeper than that. It’s doing things behind my back, it’s running away from home a few times – and then for real, it’s doing drugs and having sex before they can even drive a car.
I find incredible hope in this article. I am excited for what may happen in my lifetime. Which of us might be patiently trying explaining third grade math to the next Albert Einstein? What could Einstein have done if instead of starting where he did; he could start at the end of his work and move beyond that?
There is an interesting article relating the policies that the “left” espouses and the loss of population (Christian Europeans, for example, have not been replacing themselves even 1:1 for 30 years). If you look at the things they scorn and the things they support, they take a very self-destructive stance overall (conspiracy theories here might suggest this was done deliberately during the 60s and 70s by our enemy then, but you’re not really suggesting *I* am a conspiracy theorist... er... are you? Hey... why are you looking at me that way? You don’t have any funny business in mind do you? Hey! Stop it!)
The Article of Hope:
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=40424
An example of self-destructive politics follows. Let me know if I need to blog about this one, though my point will not be about individual choice but rather because one party has forced this issue into national debate, they have espoused self-destruction. Again, I have no problem with people making individual choices that seem counter to what's being said here, I'm looking at the overall swing.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005277
I didn’t understand it back then (this must have been 20 years ago, yikes!!) but what I think I’m saying is that because there would be those among us who wanted to justify our own rebellion by pointing to our kids and saying “all kids rebel, we were just kids” our kids would deny us that justification. Additionally, I think (though the phrase had not been coined then) I saw then that our kids would carry off the ultimate dig: they would take away from us the chance to be the next “greatest generation” by so clearly being ready to overshadow us.
I’m not talking about kids being perfect little angels. My own kids argue, they do things wrong, they hide candy in their room, they get suspended from the school bus... rebellion goes much deeper than that. It’s doing things behind my back, it’s running away from home a few times – and then for real, it’s doing drugs and having sex before they can even drive a car.
I find incredible hope in this article. I am excited for what may happen in my lifetime. Which of us might be patiently trying explaining third grade math to the next Albert Einstein? What could Einstein have done if instead of starting where he did; he could start at the end of his work and move beyond that?
There is an interesting article relating the policies that the “left” espouses and the loss of population (Christian Europeans, for example, have not been replacing themselves even 1:1 for 30 years). If you look at the things they scorn and the things they support, they take a very self-destructive stance overall (conspiracy theories here might suggest this was done deliberately during the 60s and 70s by our enemy then, but you’re not really suggesting *I* am a conspiracy theorist... er... are you? Hey... why are you looking at me that way? You don’t have any funny business in mind do you? Hey! Stop it!)
The Article of Hope:
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=40424
An example of self-destructive politics follows. Let me know if I need to blog about this one, though my point will not be about individual choice but rather because one party has forced this issue into national debate, they have espoused self-destruction. Again, I have no problem with people making individual choices that seem counter to what's being said here, I'm looking at the overall swing.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005277
Friday, July 09, 2004
Hyphenated Americans.
Shorter posts. Shorter posts. Whoosh. Shorter posts.
See if you can go all week without saying African-American, Italian-American, Native-American, whatever.
When I talked to someone else about this, they said “Earthling” would be even better. I agree, when you’re talking to someone outside the country. But what I’d like to see is unification, not division, within our OWN country. It’s not so much Earth that is under attack as America. So let’s have Americans recognize we’re Americans, not divided little sub-groups.
Remember, we’re not the only people who understand VERY clearly: “Divide, and conquer”.
See if you can go all week without saying African-American, Italian-American, Native-American, whatever.
When I talked to someone else about this, they said “Earthling” would be even better. I agree, when you’re talking to someone outside the country. But what I’d like to see is unification, not division, within our OWN country. It’s not so much Earth that is under attack as America. So let’s have Americans recognize we’re Americans, not divided little sub-groups.
Remember, we’re not the only people who understand VERY clearly: “Divide, and conquer”.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Tort Reform, or The Healthcare Spiral
It’s hard to talk about certain subjects because even those people who agree with me have fears that change their politics. We all recognize that people have different issues they cling to, so you’re not going to be “all conservative” or “all liberal”. One that I see a lot of uncertainty over is healthcare.
We see rising healthcare costs and we panic – after all we’re conditioned to believe things never get cheaper, they only get more expensive (despite some examples to the contrary like gas). And most of the time we have the same reaction when something gets expensive. “How are we going to pay for that?”
I would like to look at the other side of this issue. There are two parts to healthcare that cause huge bills, and they both boil down to abuse. Abuse of the legal system, and abuse of coverage.
The problem is, whenever a sensible conservative starts to talk on this issue, people jump to conclusions and put words and concepts into the conservative’s mouth. I believe overzealous trial lawyers cause incredible damage to healthcare costs. Does that mean I feel nobody should be able to sue for malpractice? No, it means I believe it has gotten out of hand. I believe people use their healthcare coverage for the wrong things. Does that mean I believe nobody should have healthcare coverage? No, it means that they’re using their coverage for things they shouldn’t.
What are the results? The money has to come from SOMEWHERE. Illustration: Doctor performs surgery and makes a mistake. Patient sues doctor. Patient and their lawyers get large compensation packages. Doctor needs to get the money back from somewhere, supposedly they have insurance to cover the claim. Whether it’s the doctor themselves or the insurer who pays, that money that went to a very few people has to come from SOMEWHERE. Insurance companies don’t mint money. They take it from you in the form of premiums. So let’s say your insurance company, which has been slowly building up its cash buffer, has to pay out $50 million to this patient and their lawyers. Let’s use example numbers and say they’ve got $40 million in the bank. They borrow the extra $10 million and raise your rates in order to not only fill their reservoir back up (hopefully faster this time so they don’t have to borrow to pay out) but also to pay interest on their loan. So... who paid that patient and their lawyers? Did the doctor pay? No. YOU paid. Your insurance rates went up. You didn’t pay the whole $50 million, you just paid a little of it. You and everyone else at that insurance company just paid “punitive damages” two one patient and a few lawyers.
I do not have health insurance. I have rarely had it. I paid for two of my children’s births (please realize that my wife and I are a unified team, so “we” might be a better word to use, but may be confusing). I have had two “procedures” and have paid for them both out of my own pocket. I went into debt, and paid it out.
It is not easy. It is always frustrating. And it’s bloody expensive. Now, if healthcare were more commensurate with, say, auto repair – your regular needs cost you like oil changes and tune ups, and occasionally you had a $200 or $500 or even $1000 job you needed done – we could all pay for it as it came up. We’d grumble, just as we do when our car isn’t working and is going to cost a lot to fix, but we’d deal with it.
I don’t want to do away with healthcare coverage. There are actually many things that a “regular Joe” (not schmo) can’t afford. But if healthcare covered those things, in full or with reasonable deductibles, and we put a cap on what a lawyer could make as a fee (make the cap huge, but put it on there) the overhead we’re paying, not for quality care, not for quality facilities, not for necessary procedures, but to patients and particularly their lawyers (who were not injured or damaged by the malpractice) would stop coming out of OUR paychecks.
Yes, this entire illustration works for taxes too. Perhaps that’s a future post, so you can see it written somewhere that a conservative (looking more and more archetypal all the time) WANTS taxes. But that he wants reasonable taxes, and them spent on reasonable things.
You see, in both cases, this is the ultimate thrust: I support the government looking out for “the little guy” (defining “the little guy” is a whole topic by itself) but I do not support the government trying to turn “the little guy” into “the big guy”. The fact is that turning the little guy into the big guy is almost always done at the expense of other little guys. They make it LOOK like the “big guy” is being hurt, being chipped away at, but when you actually follow the money you see it doesn’t come from so-called big guys. It comes from you and me. And to feed the system, proponents of it must accelerate the attrition.
Then there’s the “moving doctor” phenomenon. Doctors leaving places like Canada and Mississippi in droves because they can’t afford to work there. When the cost of insurance overshadows the fee you charge, becomes your number one expense, you move to where it isn’t so bad. When was the last time you looked at just how much you’re paying in homeowner’s insurance and taxes? I looked at my bill. More than 35% of what I pay in my monthly mortgage is taxes and insurance. On a mortgage of $1000 that means you’re actually only paying $650 for your house, the rest is insurance and taxes. Extrapolating this analogy, the mortgage I pay here would be $1500 in Canada or Mississippi. For the same $650 house payment. At that point I move back to Texas. That’s what it’s like to be a doctor today.
Again, I’m not against insurance, or healthcare, I’m against the swelling leech that sucks the blood out of our economy so that we’re all a bunch of people paying more for the extras and overheads than the actual services themselves.
We see rising healthcare costs and we panic – after all we’re conditioned to believe things never get cheaper, they only get more expensive (despite some examples to the contrary like gas). And most of the time we have the same reaction when something gets expensive. “How are we going to pay for that?”
I would like to look at the other side of this issue. There are two parts to healthcare that cause huge bills, and they both boil down to abuse. Abuse of the legal system, and abuse of coverage.
The problem is, whenever a sensible conservative starts to talk on this issue, people jump to conclusions and put words and concepts into the conservative’s mouth. I believe overzealous trial lawyers cause incredible damage to healthcare costs. Does that mean I feel nobody should be able to sue for malpractice? No, it means I believe it has gotten out of hand. I believe people use their healthcare coverage for the wrong things. Does that mean I believe nobody should have healthcare coverage? No, it means that they’re using their coverage for things they shouldn’t.
What are the results? The money has to come from SOMEWHERE. Illustration: Doctor performs surgery and makes a mistake. Patient sues doctor. Patient and their lawyers get large compensation packages. Doctor needs to get the money back from somewhere, supposedly they have insurance to cover the claim. Whether it’s the doctor themselves or the insurer who pays, that money that went to a very few people has to come from SOMEWHERE. Insurance companies don’t mint money. They take it from you in the form of premiums. So let’s say your insurance company, which has been slowly building up its cash buffer, has to pay out $50 million to this patient and their lawyers. Let’s use example numbers and say they’ve got $40 million in the bank. They borrow the extra $10 million and raise your rates in order to not only fill their reservoir back up (hopefully faster this time so they don’t have to borrow to pay out) but also to pay interest on their loan. So... who paid that patient and their lawyers? Did the doctor pay? No. YOU paid. Your insurance rates went up. You didn’t pay the whole $50 million, you just paid a little of it. You and everyone else at that insurance company just paid “punitive damages” two one patient and a few lawyers.
I do not have health insurance. I have rarely had it. I paid for two of my children’s births (please realize that my wife and I are a unified team, so “we” might be a better word to use, but may be confusing). I have had two “procedures” and have paid for them both out of my own pocket. I went into debt, and paid it out.
It is not easy. It is always frustrating. And it’s bloody expensive. Now, if healthcare were more commensurate with, say, auto repair – your regular needs cost you like oil changes and tune ups, and occasionally you had a $200 or $500 or even $1000 job you needed done – we could all pay for it as it came up. We’d grumble, just as we do when our car isn’t working and is going to cost a lot to fix, but we’d deal with it.
I don’t want to do away with healthcare coverage. There are actually many things that a “regular Joe” (not schmo) can’t afford. But if healthcare covered those things, in full or with reasonable deductibles, and we put a cap on what a lawyer could make as a fee (make the cap huge, but put it on there) the overhead we’re paying, not for quality care, not for quality facilities, not for necessary procedures, but to patients and particularly their lawyers (who were not injured or damaged by the malpractice) would stop coming out of OUR paychecks.
Yes, this entire illustration works for taxes too. Perhaps that’s a future post, so you can see it written somewhere that a conservative (looking more and more archetypal all the time) WANTS taxes. But that he wants reasonable taxes, and them spent on reasonable things.
You see, in both cases, this is the ultimate thrust: I support the government looking out for “the little guy” (defining “the little guy” is a whole topic by itself) but I do not support the government trying to turn “the little guy” into “the big guy”. The fact is that turning the little guy into the big guy is almost always done at the expense of other little guys. They make it LOOK like the “big guy” is being hurt, being chipped away at, but when you actually follow the money you see it doesn’t come from so-called big guys. It comes from you and me. And to feed the system, proponents of it must accelerate the attrition.
Then there’s the “moving doctor” phenomenon. Doctors leaving places like Canada and Mississippi in droves because they can’t afford to work there. When the cost of insurance overshadows the fee you charge, becomes your number one expense, you move to where it isn’t so bad. When was the last time you looked at just how much you’re paying in homeowner’s insurance and taxes? I looked at my bill. More than 35% of what I pay in my monthly mortgage is taxes and insurance. On a mortgage of $1000 that means you’re actually only paying $650 for your house, the rest is insurance and taxes. Extrapolating this analogy, the mortgage I pay here would be $1500 in Canada or Mississippi. For the same $650 house payment. At that point I move back to Texas. That’s what it’s like to be a doctor today.
Again, I’m not against insurance, or healthcare, I’m against the swelling leech that sucks the blood out of our economy so that we’re all a bunch of people paying more for the extras and overheads than the actual services themselves.
Friday, July 02, 2004
America's Heart & Soul
AMC Huebner Oaks 24
11075 1H 10 West
America’s Heart and Soul.
Heard about this movie?
Let me try another title.
Fahrenheit 9/11.
While the press couldn’t wait to extol the controversies surrounding Michael Moore’s filth (which is now being completely debunked by Richard Clark, who is quoted constantly in the movie as a reliable source – how do you spin that one Mr. Moore??) the big names in movie critics (don’t get me started) are all attempting to say that America’s Heart and Soul, which WILL be distributed by Disney, is nothing but “... a way to escape contemporary America rather than celebrate it.” (Dave Kehr, New York Times).
What?? Contemporary America ... oooooooooooooooodon’tgetmestarted. Two problems here. First, isn’t that what Disney IS SUPPOSED TO BE??? I thought, forgive me if I’m having one of those childhood moments here, Disney was all about being positive, reinforcing, and on the sunny side of life. Are we suggesting that the icon of American Happiness is now supposed to be dark and gloomy? Besides, their films are dark and gloomy most of the time now. Do we KNOW they didn’t distribute F9/11 because it was anti-Bush, or perhaps they saw it and knew the inaccuracies and didn’t want to be associated with the fall-out?
Furthermore, this crap about Contemporary America. Actually, first let me give you the next article, as it adds to what I want to say on that score. Here the Hollywood Reporter actually comes out and suggests they are the center of the universe and anyone who likes this film is completely out of touch: “In cinemas, ‘Heart & Soul’ is an odd duck, out of sync with the current generation of documentarians whose films dig deep into stories and issues the media generally overlooks.”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000554196
Did anyone else fall apart laughing at the suggestion those tripe films dig into issues "the media generally overlooks"? Seems to me the problem is there's too much looking so by the time the film comes out there's "nothing new in it" (according to the NYT which still gave it a thumbs up).
I encourage you to read this article. It was, to me, a great example of how spin backfires when you are too blatantly obvious about it. In order to spin the subject, you still have to state the subject, and I found myself agreeing more with the unheard film than with the outspoken critic.
Here’s my beef. In this very article this critic suggests that the film should have presented the frustrations as well as the positives. Like.... Michael Moore did? How many “well rounded” anti-Bush films are there? Have they shown what we ACCOMPLISHED over in Iraq? Have they bothered to point out that WE HAVE FOUND AND CONTINUE TO FIND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?
In our own country it’s no different. If you don’t live in Hollywood or where you can look enviously at the sign on the hill, or in New York or close enough to smell the dump on Staten Island, or in Boston where you can vote for Ted Kennedy and John Kerry... YOU are apparently a relic, a throwback, a red-neck hick hillbilly and you are NOT contemporary America. So in a completely self-contradictory way this critic is asking us to be well rounded but wants to discount anyone who lives where there’s breathing room between their stucco and their neighbor’s stucco. It seems to me diversity is only convenient when it benefits them, not when it suggests there’s something else actually out there besides their narrow view.
Personally, I am NOT an Eisner fan. I think he’s screwed Disney up in ways I can’t even fathom. But you should talk to my sister about that. She not only knows Disney much better than I do, but she knows investing pretty darn well and can probably speak to the financial ways Eisner has damaged the company by taking so much “personal money” out in the way of stock options. Like HE was responsible for the stock being that high in the first place. Well, I don’t pretend that he makes every little decision about what Disney shows and doesn’t, but whoever over there is finally showing something upbeat and encouraging, you may have earned my only movie ticket this year (admittedly I don’t go to the movies that much).
It was hard to find where this movie is playing near me, but I found on theater about 45 miles away (Moore complained that his film started in only 898 theaters, this one opened today in 90). I can’t afford to go to the movies right now, but I will skip a meal to see this film.
11075 1H 10 West
America’s Heart and Soul.
Heard about this movie?
Let me try another title.
Fahrenheit 9/11.
While the press couldn’t wait to extol the controversies surrounding Michael Moore’s filth (which is now being completely debunked by Richard Clark, who is quoted constantly in the movie as a reliable source – how do you spin that one Mr. Moore??) the big names in movie critics (don’t get me started) are all attempting to say that America’s Heart and Soul, which WILL be distributed by Disney, is nothing but “... a way to escape contemporary America rather than celebrate it.” (Dave Kehr, New York Times).
What?? Contemporary America ... oooooooooooooooodon’tgetmestarted. Two problems here. First, isn’t that what Disney IS SUPPOSED TO BE??? I thought, forgive me if I’m having one of those childhood moments here, Disney was all about being positive, reinforcing, and on the sunny side of life. Are we suggesting that the icon of American Happiness is now supposed to be dark and gloomy? Besides, their films are dark and gloomy most of the time now. Do we KNOW they didn’t distribute F9/11 because it was anti-Bush, or perhaps they saw it and knew the inaccuracies and didn’t want to be associated with the fall-out?
Furthermore, this crap about Contemporary America. Actually, first let me give you the next article, as it adds to what I want to say on that score. Here the Hollywood Reporter actually comes out and suggests they are the center of the universe and anyone who likes this film is completely out of touch: “In cinemas, ‘Heart & Soul’ is an odd duck, out of sync with the current generation of documentarians whose films dig deep into stories and issues the media generally overlooks.”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000554196
Did anyone else fall apart laughing at the suggestion those tripe films dig into issues "the media generally overlooks"? Seems to me the problem is there's too much looking so by the time the film comes out there's "nothing new in it" (according to the NYT which still gave it a thumbs up).
I encourage you to read this article. It was, to me, a great example of how spin backfires when you are too blatantly obvious about it. In order to spin the subject, you still have to state the subject, and I found myself agreeing more with the unheard film than with the outspoken critic.
Here’s my beef. In this very article this critic suggests that the film should have presented the frustrations as well as the positives. Like.... Michael Moore did? How many “well rounded” anti-Bush films are there? Have they shown what we ACCOMPLISHED over in Iraq? Have they bothered to point out that WE HAVE FOUND AND CONTINUE TO FIND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?
In our own country it’s no different. If you don’t live in Hollywood or where you can look enviously at the sign on the hill, or in New York or close enough to smell the dump on Staten Island, or in Boston where you can vote for Ted Kennedy and John Kerry... YOU are apparently a relic, a throwback, a red-neck hick hillbilly and you are NOT contemporary America. So in a completely self-contradictory way this critic is asking us to be well rounded but wants to discount anyone who lives where there’s breathing room between their stucco and their neighbor’s stucco. It seems to me diversity is only convenient when it benefits them, not when it suggests there’s something else actually out there besides their narrow view.
Personally, I am NOT an Eisner fan. I think he’s screwed Disney up in ways I can’t even fathom. But you should talk to my sister about that. She not only knows Disney much better than I do, but she knows investing pretty darn well and can probably speak to the financial ways Eisner has damaged the company by taking so much “personal money” out in the way of stock options. Like HE was responsible for the stock being that high in the first place. Well, I don’t pretend that he makes every little decision about what Disney shows and doesn’t, but whoever over there is finally showing something upbeat and encouraging, you may have earned my only movie ticket this year (admittedly I don’t go to the movies that much).
It was hard to find where this movie is playing near me, but I found on theater about 45 miles away (Moore complained that his film started in only 898 theaters, this one opened today in 90). I can’t afford to go to the movies right now, but I will skip a meal to see this film.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Positive Reinforcement II
Just when you thought the 9/11 Commission was all about trashing the President, just when you thought they were going to find we're losing the war on terrorism... you find out it's not the 9/11 Commission against the President or hoping we lose the war, it's "selective journalism" that chose to report 1/2 of one sentence (that basically said while there WAS a relationship between Al' Qaeda and Iraq, there appeared to be no collusion between them specifically on 9/11) they completely ignored SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS of extremely positive news. Sigh.
Here's the part of Staff Statement 15 that the press decided Americans didn't need to hear about, as reported by the Commission under the heading "Al Qaeda* Today."
"Since the September 11 attacks and the defeat of the Taliban, as Qaeda's funding has decreased significantly. The arrests or deaths of several important financial facilitators have decreased the amount of money al Qaeda has raised and increased the costs and difficulty of raising and moving that money.
"Some entirely corrupt charities are now out of business, with many of their principals killed or captured, although some charities may still be providing support to al Qaeda.
"Moreover, it appears that the al Qaeda attacks within Saudi Arabia in May and November 2003 have reduced - perhaps drastically - at Qaeda's ability to raise funds from Saudi sources. Both an increase in Saudi enforcement and a more negative perception of al Qaeda by potential donors have cut its income." [END OF EXCERPT]
And the good news for America - not to mention the Bush administration - doesn't end there. In the same section, Staff Statement 15 notes:
"Prior to 9/11, al Qaeda was a centralized organization which used Afghanistan as a war room to strategize, plan attacks, and dispatch operatives worldwide." But now, says the Commission, "Bin Ladin's* seclusion [has] forced operational commanders and cell leaders to assume greater authority; they are now making the command decisions previously made by him."
The report concluded that Al Qaeda is not capable of the kind of massive attack they once carried out on our east coast. Sounds to me like we're winning. Wouldn't it be nice to at least know that? How many people are carrying around extra stress, perhaps claiming they need state sponsored (read, your tax-money sponsored) therapy who could rest easier of the press weren't so hell bent on making them miserable?
Here's the part of Staff Statement 15 that the press decided Americans didn't need to hear about, as reported by the Commission under the heading "Al Qaeda* Today."
"Since the September 11 attacks and the defeat of the Taliban, as Qaeda's funding has decreased significantly. The arrests or deaths of several important financial facilitators have decreased the amount of money al Qaeda has raised and increased the costs and difficulty of raising and moving that money.
"Some entirely corrupt charities are now out of business, with many of their principals killed or captured, although some charities may still be providing support to al Qaeda.
"Moreover, it appears that the al Qaeda attacks within Saudi Arabia in May and November 2003 have reduced - perhaps drastically - at Qaeda's ability to raise funds from Saudi sources. Both an increase in Saudi enforcement and a more negative perception of al Qaeda by potential donors have cut its income." [END OF EXCERPT]
And the good news for America - not to mention the Bush administration - doesn't end there. In the same section, Staff Statement 15 notes:
"Prior to 9/11, al Qaeda was a centralized organization which used Afghanistan as a war room to strategize, plan attacks, and dispatch operatives worldwide." But now, says the Commission, "Bin Ladin's* seclusion [has] forced operational commanders and cell leaders to assume greater authority; they are now making the command decisions previously made by him."
The report concluded that Al Qaeda is not capable of the kind of massive attack they once carried out on our east coast. Sounds to me like we're winning. Wouldn't it be nice to at least know that? How many people are carrying around extra stress, perhaps claiming they need state sponsored (read, your tax-money sponsored) therapy who could rest easier of the press weren't so hell bent on making them miserable?
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
My Spectator Sport
I get worked up over politics like most people do over a Super Bowl with their home team in it, or their favorite franchise in the NBA Finals. As admitted earlier, politics IS my spectator sport. I have a home team, and I get madder about a perceived referee problem than I do over a loss. If I lose fair and square I’m disgusted, but when I feel the refs blew the game for me, or the other team played too dirty, then I get simply outraged.
So I fear losing, but I fear losing more when it’s not because I lost fair and square, it’s when someone didn’t play within the ‘established rules’ or used some bias or bozo ref against me. I can understand why people are so outraged against PRESIDENT George W. Bush. They feel that’s exactly what happened. I think that’s why tempers are so hot.
Analogy: The finals are narrowing down. It looks like this year’s Super Bowl is going to be a re-match between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins (don’t tell me if that combo isn’t possible, just flow with me here).
Last year, the game was won by a single point on a play that ran as time expired. The Cowboys’ quarterback threw a pass to the end zone (is that the right term? I’m a hockey fan but hockey seemed too obscure for a general analogy) and the Redskins claim the receiver (who had just been drafted from the Gators) did not get both feet down in bounds (that’s the rule, right?) To make matters worse, not fifteen seconds before the ball was snapped on that final play, an NBC (who had the rights to the game) color commentator claimed that with only two seconds left and almost exactly half the field to cross, the Cowboys couldn’t win, the game was going to the Redskins.
The refs watched the replay, taking their time as a tense crowd began to throw beer and pizza at each other, as people around the nation paced and screamed in front of the TVs where they could see the replays themselves and all held opinions that backed their favorite teams.
Finally, the refs called in favor of keeping the touchdown. The Cowboys won. The tape was analyzed, digitized, zoomed, altered, tested, distributed, debunked, framed in gold, and flushed down several toilets. In every instance, it sure looked like toes BARELY bent blades of green grass before scraping across white chalk. But still, the outrage continued.
Adding fuel to the fire for this year, the Cowboys have had a spectacular season. They’re undefeated despite several close games, a few scandalous stories, and a few interesting player trades. One most incredible story is that the Cowboys’ quarterback was doing a charity event for local school children when the fire alarm went off at the school. Some nut had blown up the bathroom, killing a few children and a janitor. Administrators from the local school Principle to the national Secretary of Education pointed fingers and blamed each other because apparently the bomber had left a bomb-scare message at the office that went without action. This was supposed to be impossible, but it turns out through several funding mishaps, the secretaries were so under-staffed that the only one on duty (instead of three) had been sitting on her coffee for five hours and needed to go to the bathroom – so the bomber got an answering machine. This didn’t daunt the quarterback who charged into the flames, rescued five children and a badly burned teacher, and was still able to start the season without injuries.
The only real benefit was that the Cowboys’ popularity around the nation soared for some time so they sold out every stadium the visited, though by the playoffs, public opinion had drained right back into the trenches it always occupied.
Now, hot to prove that they were beaten by a technicality, the Redskins are on the warpath. Dismayed that none of THEIR players was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to save children and public workers, they’ve gone on a smear campaign to discredit as many of the Cowboys’ players as possible. The Cowboys, on the other hand, have launched salvoes right back, touting their higher points-per-game average, better completed pass record, better points-against total, and higher ticket sales. Whether this was due to playing in larger markets against weaker teams with a quarterback who is “in the zone” (everything seems to go right at the same time or wrong at the same time, right?) or because they are really superior is what’s on the line.
Whoops, almost put up my next post as a tirade developed from this one. Bad blogger. Bad blogger. Upcoming: my personal demon-army, bias media that portrays itself as unbias.
So I fear losing, but I fear losing more when it’s not because I lost fair and square, it’s when someone didn’t play within the ‘established rules’ or used some bias or bozo ref against me. I can understand why people are so outraged against PRESIDENT George W. Bush. They feel that’s exactly what happened. I think that’s why tempers are so hot.
Analogy: The finals are narrowing down. It looks like this year’s Super Bowl is going to be a re-match between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins (don’t tell me if that combo isn’t possible, just flow with me here).
Last year, the game was won by a single point on a play that ran as time expired. The Cowboys’ quarterback threw a pass to the end zone (is that the right term? I’m a hockey fan but hockey seemed too obscure for a general analogy) and the Redskins claim the receiver (who had just been drafted from the Gators) did not get both feet down in bounds (that’s the rule, right?) To make matters worse, not fifteen seconds before the ball was snapped on that final play, an NBC (who had the rights to the game) color commentator claimed that with only two seconds left and almost exactly half the field to cross, the Cowboys couldn’t win, the game was going to the Redskins.
The refs watched the replay, taking their time as a tense crowd began to throw beer and pizza at each other, as people around the nation paced and screamed in front of the TVs where they could see the replays themselves and all held opinions that backed their favorite teams.
Finally, the refs called in favor of keeping the touchdown. The Cowboys won. The tape was analyzed, digitized, zoomed, altered, tested, distributed, debunked, framed in gold, and flushed down several toilets. In every instance, it sure looked like toes BARELY bent blades of green grass before scraping across white chalk. But still, the outrage continued.
Adding fuel to the fire for this year, the Cowboys have had a spectacular season. They’re undefeated despite several close games, a few scandalous stories, and a few interesting player trades. One most incredible story is that the Cowboys’ quarterback was doing a charity event for local school children when the fire alarm went off at the school. Some nut had blown up the bathroom, killing a few children and a janitor. Administrators from the local school Principle to the national Secretary of Education pointed fingers and blamed each other because apparently the bomber had left a bomb-scare message at the office that went without action. This was supposed to be impossible, but it turns out through several funding mishaps, the secretaries were so under-staffed that the only one on duty (instead of three) had been sitting on her coffee for five hours and needed to go to the bathroom – so the bomber got an answering machine. This didn’t daunt the quarterback who charged into the flames, rescued five children and a badly burned teacher, and was still able to start the season without injuries.
The only real benefit was that the Cowboys’ popularity around the nation soared for some time so they sold out every stadium the visited, though by the playoffs, public opinion had drained right back into the trenches it always occupied.
Now, hot to prove that they were beaten by a technicality, the Redskins are on the warpath. Dismayed that none of THEIR players was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to save children and public workers, they’ve gone on a smear campaign to discredit as many of the Cowboys’ players as possible. The Cowboys, on the other hand, have launched salvoes right back, touting their higher points-per-game average, better completed pass record, better points-against total, and higher ticket sales. Whether this was due to playing in larger markets against weaker teams with a quarterback who is “in the zone” (everything seems to go right at the same time or wrong at the same time, right?) or because they are really superior is what’s on the line.
Whoops, almost put up my next post as a tirade developed from this one. Bad blogger. Bad blogger. Upcoming: my personal demon-army, bias media that portrays itself as unbias.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Positive Reinforcement I
Perhaps to some this may now seem “behind the times”, but I think it remains timely. This is an e-mail I received through channels from someone “on the ground” in Iraq. This was delivered to me before we officially handed power over to the Iraqis.
It is my fervent hope that we will finally HEAR some of this stuff on the mainstream media. Though, the more I study the so-called mainstream media, the more it is clear they’re not only less and less mainstream, they’re less and less watched. Perhaps we ARE hearing this stuff, because we are a more effective media than the methods that have become “traditional”.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t a honest, decent person in the world who should NOT be happy and excited when reading the following.
I have implied permission to post this information (we were asked to spread the word).
--==<< >>==--
Hey Everyone,
I just wanted to give you all another update as the hand-over of power is around the corner. We've been pretty busy getting ready. The negative press you hear about everyday is less than half of what is really going on.
The transfer of sovereignty is all about giving the Iraqis complete control of their country. It's been somewhat difficult to teach the local municipalities how to act in a democracy. Instead of simply taking whatever the government happens to give them, they're learning how to make the government work for them.
So, we are taking a step back and handing off the reins to them. In reality this has been happening for the past few months. >From the Civil Affairs standpoint it means that instead of us directly helping the Iraqis, we are helping them to help themselves.
The Iraqis we've been dealing with are more than capable of taking control. We'll still be around assisting with the growing pains of the new government, but it's all through Iraqi channels now. The insurgent attacks you see in the news are the utterly desperate attempts of the enemy to derail this whole process one last time.
I've read articles in the press that describe the anti-Coalition/anti-Iraqi forces as 'freedom fighters' and 'revolutionaries.' Anyone who tries to kill Marines and soldiers who deliver medical supplies, or Iraqi women who wash laundry for the Americans, or Iraqi police officers is not interested in 'freedom.' The only thing they are fighting for is a destabilization of the area, and that will not happen. They know this, which is why they are getting so desperate right now.
It seems to me there are some members of the domestic and international media who are actively attempting to distort the truth for their own means. I've said it before, but this is a fight happening on two simultaneous fronts. There is the physical fight and the war of perception and ideas. We are all involved in the second front, and in reality that is where we will win in the end.
So, I'm asking you all to stay vigilant. It's a tough battle, but we are bringing liberty to this part of the world. This is the way it has always been. Liberty has not seen an easy introduction anywhere. But that is why we are here in Iraq. By bringing liberty to a land that has never known her, we are helping to secure our own liberty for the future.
There is much good going on over here. The towns we're responsible for now have a higher standard of living than at any time under Saddam. The Iraqis will not soon forget all the help we have given.
President Reagan correctly called America "the city set on a hill." Let us never forget who we really are and our true place in the world. We set the highest example of justice, liberty and freedom in the world. So, we are counting on you to continue the good fight at home, spreading truth wherever you are. Keep your spirits up. Don't give in to pessimism, apathy or despair. Together we will be successful and America will again prove that it is "the city set on a hill."
I thank you for all your support and I hope to hear from you soon.
God Bless and Semper Fidelis.
Love, Rob
Lt. Robert Nofsinger, USMC
Ramadi, Iraq
It is my fervent hope that we will finally HEAR some of this stuff on the mainstream media. Though, the more I study the so-called mainstream media, the more it is clear they’re not only less and less mainstream, they’re less and less watched. Perhaps we ARE hearing this stuff, because we are a more effective media than the methods that have become “traditional”.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t a honest, decent person in the world who should NOT be happy and excited when reading the following.
I have implied permission to post this information (we were asked to spread the word).
--==<< >>==--
Hey Everyone,
I just wanted to give you all another update as the hand-over of power is around the corner. We've been pretty busy getting ready. The negative press you hear about everyday is less than half of what is really going on.
The transfer of sovereignty is all about giving the Iraqis complete control of their country. It's been somewhat difficult to teach the local municipalities how to act in a democracy. Instead of simply taking whatever the government happens to give them, they're learning how to make the government work for them.
So, we are taking a step back and handing off the reins to them. In reality this has been happening for the past few months. >From the Civil Affairs standpoint it means that instead of us directly helping the Iraqis, we are helping them to help themselves.
The Iraqis we've been dealing with are more than capable of taking control. We'll still be around assisting with the growing pains of the new government, but it's all through Iraqi channels now. The insurgent attacks you see in the news are the utterly desperate attempts of the enemy to derail this whole process one last time.
I've read articles in the press that describe the anti-Coalition/anti-Iraqi forces as 'freedom fighters' and 'revolutionaries.' Anyone who tries to kill Marines and soldiers who deliver medical supplies, or Iraqi women who wash laundry for the Americans, or Iraqi police officers is not interested in 'freedom.' The only thing they are fighting for is a destabilization of the area, and that will not happen. They know this, which is why they are getting so desperate right now.
It seems to me there are some members of the domestic and international media who are actively attempting to distort the truth for their own means. I've said it before, but this is a fight happening on two simultaneous fronts. There is the physical fight and the war of perception and ideas. We are all involved in the second front, and in reality that is where we will win in the end.
So, I'm asking you all to stay vigilant. It's a tough battle, but we are bringing liberty to this part of the world. This is the way it has always been. Liberty has not seen an easy introduction anywhere. But that is why we are here in Iraq. By bringing liberty to a land that has never known her, we are helping to secure our own liberty for the future.
There is much good going on over here. The towns we're responsible for now have a higher standard of living than at any time under Saddam. The Iraqis will not soon forget all the help we have given.
President Reagan correctly called America "the city set on a hill." Let us never forget who we really are and our true place in the world. We set the highest example of justice, liberty and freedom in the world. So, we are counting on you to continue the good fight at home, spreading truth wherever you are. Keep your spirits up. Don't give in to pessimism, apathy or despair. Together we will be successful and America will again prove that it is "the city set on a hill."
I thank you for all your support and I hope to hear from you soon.
God Bless and Semper Fidelis.
Love, Rob
Lt. Robert Nofsinger, USMC
Ramadi, Iraq
Monday, June 28, 2004
Moore Hype
Ok. I admit it. Michael Moore is my anti-Christ. There are other arch-devils out there, but this guy has to top the list. I can respect guys like Ralph Nader (though he’s also made a career of trashing other people and things, often unjustly but with great hype). But it’s interesting, there’s something Moore has in common with Soros. They’re both in it for money. Michael Moore has written as much poisonous garbage about the previous president (42) as he has about President George W. Bush. It just didn’t stick with our crowd because we’re not actually the “hate mongers” the left tries to say we are. It sticks just fine with the “bleeding heart” side. What does that say about them? What it says about Moore is that he also "follows the money". Even those that hate what he does admit he's a genious at promotion. He's picked a fireball, controversy genre in which to sell, and plays it to the hilt, looking for every trick he can to find more buyers. He hits first at his target audience's righteous fury, then at other people's curiosity.
I was all in a tizzy because of how “well” Michael Moore’s movie is doing in the theaters this weekend. I got depressed. I was thinking “geez, is THIS the country we live in?”
Then I did some arithmetic, and some further looking (and I got an amazing e-mail from someone in Iraq I may post in this blog verbatim because it’s so impressive).
Point one, which is part of the “setup” for my punch line. Look at the prison abuse “scandal” in Iraq. The military came forward LAST NOVEMBER with this story, announcing what was going on and that they were putting it to an end. They put out press releases about it EVERY WEEK for the next four months. It wasn’t until pictures came out that it became international news. So what’s the point? Pictures are supposed to say more than words. Nobody pays attention to words, they like pictures better.
Point two, part of the arithmetic. Let’s be “conservative” and say that a movie ticket in this country averages $6. I know, most of you are laughing. You’d LOVE to find a theater that sold tickets consistently at $6. Well, I don’t go to the movies very often (maybe once a year) so forgive my underestimation. I'm trying to help Moore out my making the numbers look like even more people than there were.
Point three, F-9/11 supposedly grossed $21.6 million this weekend. It broke the documentary record for one weekend sales. Bowling for Columbine (which has already been debunked as fiction instead of documentary due to several filming techniques that “fabricated” scenes for dramatic impact - and there are several groups I am watching who claim they can prove F-9/11 is similarly dramatic fiction) was the previous record holder. At $21.3 million. Anyone notice anything there? Can we guess that, in the last three years, the average price of a ticket has gone up thirty cents? If it has gone up more than that, FEWER people actually saw this movie than his last. Let’s just say things have stayed the same. At $6/ticket, that’s 50,000 more people than last time. This is where my panic started to subside. Again, I think I’m actually over-stating in Moore’s favor here.
Point four, which is an obvious extrapolation from Point three. Let’s bump it up to $22 million in ticket sales (and I don’t want to suggest any of these theaters has actually over-estimated their sales for dramatic impact, that would be... ridiculous... wouldn’t it?) that’s 3.67 million people. Now before I get outraged that 3.67 million people across this country went to see this self-declared propaganda (let’s further assume that not only did all those tickets sell in reality, but each one went to a unique person). There are 288 million people in the country (That’s 0.01%). If the movie grosses $200 million over it’s entire run and each person that went was unique (nobody saw it twice) that would make 11.5%. Political analysts have gauged hard-core liberals against hard-core conservatives and found that at the absolute worst time to oppose war (when everyone is “for” it) 12% of the people still say it’s a bad idea. 12% will always answer on EVERY poll that war is NEVER the answer. 33%, on the other hand, was the lowest support any war in American history ever got. These numbers are supported in other areas of contention, most notably taxes and abortion. So, perhaps an extrapolation here, but I think it would be a stretch that the 12% of our population who, under my most generous estimates, went to see this film, were people who were going to vote for President Bush’s re-election in the first place, but then also changed their minds and decided to vote for Senator Kerry.
Ok. Now I’m breathing a little easier. But then, consider this. Here comes the punch line.
Rush Limbaugh’s DAILY audience is 12 million people. His WEEKLY audience is 20 million people. His venue is WORDS not PICTURES. He does this EVERY WEEK and is growing instead of subsiding. In other words, F-9/11, or at least ONE of Michael Moore’s messages, would have to sell $72 million EVERY WEEK DAY, or if we accept that he lets “repeat viewers” to his movies in FREE, $120 EVERY WEEK to match Limbaugh. Not one week, not one month, but every week. From now on. Oh, and from only 600 theaters, not 898. Rush is only on 600 radio stations.
And by the way... Passion of the Christ? $500 million and growing.
I actually slept pretty well last night.
I was all in a tizzy because of how “well” Michael Moore’s movie is doing in the theaters this weekend. I got depressed. I was thinking “geez, is THIS the country we live in?”
Then I did some arithmetic, and some further looking (and I got an amazing e-mail from someone in Iraq I may post in this blog verbatim because it’s so impressive).
Point one, which is part of the “setup” for my punch line. Look at the prison abuse “scandal” in Iraq. The military came forward LAST NOVEMBER with this story, announcing what was going on and that they were putting it to an end. They put out press releases about it EVERY WEEK for the next four months. It wasn’t until pictures came out that it became international news. So what’s the point? Pictures are supposed to say more than words. Nobody pays attention to words, they like pictures better.
Point two, part of the arithmetic. Let’s be “conservative” and say that a movie ticket in this country averages $6. I know, most of you are laughing. You’d LOVE to find a theater that sold tickets consistently at $6. Well, I don’t go to the movies very often (maybe once a year) so forgive my underestimation. I'm trying to help Moore out my making the numbers look like even more people than there were.
Point three, F-9/11 supposedly grossed $21.6 million this weekend. It broke the documentary record for one weekend sales. Bowling for Columbine (which has already been debunked as fiction instead of documentary due to several filming techniques that “fabricated” scenes for dramatic impact - and there are several groups I am watching who claim they can prove F-9/11 is similarly dramatic fiction) was the previous record holder. At $21.3 million. Anyone notice anything there? Can we guess that, in the last three years, the average price of a ticket has gone up thirty cents? If it has gone up more than that, FEWER people actually saw this movie than his last. Let’s just say things have stayed the same. At $6/ticket, that’s 50,000 more people than last time. This is where my panic started to subside. Again, I think I’m actually over-stating in Moore’s favor here.
Point four, which is an obvious extrapolation from Point three. Let’s bump it up to $22 million in ticket sales (and I don’t want to suggest any of these theaters has actually over-estimated their sales for dramatic impact, that would be... ridiculous... wouldn’t it?) that’s 3.67 million people. Now before I get outraged that 3.67 million people across this country went to see this self-declared propaganda (let’s further assume that not only did all those tickets sell in reality, but each one went to a unique person). There are 288 million people in the country (That’s 0.01%). If the movie grosses $200 million over it’s entire run and each person that went was unique (nobody saw it twice) that would make 11.5%. Political analysts have gauged hard-core liberals against hard-core conservatives and found that at the absolute worst time to oppose war (when everyone is “for” it) 12% of the people still say it’s a bad idea. 12% will always answer on EVERY poll that war is NEVER the answer. 33%, on the other hand, was the lowest support any war in American history ever got. These numbers are supported in other areas of contention, most notably taxes and abortion. So, perhaps an extrapolation here, but I think it would be a stretch that the 12% of our population who, under my most generous estimates, went to see this film, were people who were going to vote for President Bush’s re-election in the first place, but then also changed their minds and decided to vote for Senator Kerry.
Ok. Now I’m breathing a little easier. But then, consider this. Here comes the punch line.
Rush Limbaugh’s DAILY audience is 12 million people. His WEEKLY audience is 20 million people. His venue is WORDS not PICTURES. He does this EVERY WEEK and is growing instead of subsiding. In other words, F-9/11, or at least ONE of Michael Moore’s messages, would have to sell $72 million EVERY WEEK DAY, or if we accept that he lets “repeat viewers” to his movies in FREE, $120 EVERY WEEK to match Limbaugh. Not one week, not one month, but every week. From now on. Oh, and from only 600 theaters, not 898. Rush is only on 600 radio stations.
And by the way... Passion of the Christ? $500 million and growing.
I actually slept pretty well last night.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Soros Sore Spot
Ok. This is it. This is why I decided to do the blog thing.
I was doing some research on George Soros. I didn’t want to just be one of the crowd that is outraged because he’s going to try to influence the election with his big money. A lot of people do that, and if he was on “my side” I would probably be thrilled. But who was this guy? I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
So I did a web search and read about two dozen articles about him (that’s almost all I could find). Some of them were duplicates, or one person quoting another about their opinion of Mr. Soros. However, there were articles from both “sides” so I think I got a pretty good size-up.
Here are two examples, but you can find many. This first one
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a93634.htm
is a rather dry and fact-heavy article that can be interpreted many ways though the writer is clearly a conservative highlighting the not-so-good mysteries about Soros.
This second one
http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2003/George-Soros-Statesman2jun03.htm
is a strong supporter of Soros now that he has decided to take on Bush.
I found them both very telling. But what really brought me to a conclusion about Soros was actually the second article. In it, the writer (whom I do not know) basically says (about six paragraphs down) that Soros is pissed off not because Bush is (as the writer puts it) imperialistic and forcing western culture down the world’s throat, but that he’s doing it in a “blundering” way. That Soros’ way is much better- using a few billion bucks he influences a nation’s politics and gets candidates he likes into office, then he buys all the school textbooks for that country so they learn what he wants them to learn. This is obviously a distillation, but if you can handle the Bush-bashing in the second article, you’ll see that even people who are pleased Soros is going to take Bush on find they can’t support the guy’s personal goals and complete lack of ethics. He ends up with more power than he gives the people in his “open societies”.
And then it hit me. As I eluded in my first post, I think most people on most sides of an issue are frustrated that the “other sides” don’t understand them and that the “other sides” are inconsistent.
Well, here’s how I see conservatives as mostly consistent. Our FIRST concern isn’t politics or money (though they are concerns). Our FIRST concern is morals/ethics. You ask how we can support Rudi or Arnold (didn’t want to tackle spelling their last names there) but we can’t support Clinton. With Rudi and Arnold you got an honest admission of what they had done, regret, and reform. With Clinton you got denial and a pattern.
How does this relate to Soros? His own admission that he does not need morals or ethics is troubling. When you allow that you will sacrifice those (such as he does to make billions of dollars at the expense of the average British taxpayer) where does the sacrifice stop? He’s also the self-and-generally-proclaimed “King of Eastern Europe”. What seeds has he left in those countries? What does he control? What freedoms do the people really enjoy? Why does he advocate the legalization of all drugs because, as he put it, it’s the fastest escape from feeling miserable? Is he planning for misery in these places? Why would you need to escape misery if your situation actually improved? Why does he similarly advocate gun control? Do you know WHY we have the second amendment? It is specifically so the GOVERNMENT can’t turn on the PEOPLE. If only the government had weapons...
Anyway, my analysis is far from done, but for a guy who sure acts like he is a solid supporter of capitalism, free trade, and democracy, one who firmly believes socialism is NOT the answer, why is he supporting a socialist style candidate? I am still confused, but it has helped me to do some research. Anyone know more facts about this guy? I’m not so much interested in Bush-bashing on this site (especially since I’m an “unabashed” supporter of our current President) but I am interested in why this guy does what he does.
So, why did this make me want to blog? To come to some peace over the concept that a multi-billionaire who has already hurt many nations (and been of questionable value to others) has set his sites on my country I felt I needed to pray. For those of you who know my religion, prayer for me is not sitting on my knees exhorting God to change things, it is active. You be a good person. You spread love, truth, principle. You don’t back down from the call when it is clear you’ve been asked to spread love, truth, principle. This is part of that action.
I don’t know who will read this blog. I don’t know if they’ll be exultant, outraged, or asleep. But it’s here. I have not only helped myself by organizing my thoughts better (and seeing where more work is needed) but who knows. Someone may end up here who needs to read what I’ve said. I may never know one way or the other, but that’s the same with my position in my church.
I am somewhere between a “minister” and a “lay reader”. My church calls it a First Reader. Once a week I put together a sermon (we have a world-wide sermon on Sundays, but a more local sermon Wednesday evenings). I never know if what I found and want to share helps ANYONE else, but I read it anyway. A few people have mentioned they found something very specific to help them. Who knows. Maybe something in here will eventually help someone else.
Dude. Your snoring is shaking the screen, and it’s a terrible blow to my ego.
I was doing some research on George Soros. I didn’t want to just be one of the crowd that is outraged because he’s going to try to influence the election with his big money. A lot of people do that, and if he was on “my side” I would probably be thrilled. But who was this guy? I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
So I did a web search and read about two dozen articles about him (that’s almost all I could find). Some of them were duplicates, or one person quoting another about their opinion of Mr. Soros. However, there were articles from both “sides” so I think I got a pretty good size-up.
Here are two examples, but you can find many. This first one
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a93634.htm
is a rather dry and fact-heavy article that can be interpreted many ways though the writer is clearly a conservative highlighting the not-so-good mysteries about Soros.
This second one
http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2003/George-Soros-Statesman2jun03.htm
is a strong supporter of Soros now that he has decided to take on Bush.
I found them both very telling. But what really brought me to a conclusion about Soros was actually the second article. In it, the writer (whom I do not know) basically says (about six paragraphs down) that Soros is pissed off not because Bush is (as the writer puts it) imperialistic and forcing western culture down the world’s throat, but that he’s doing it in a “blundering” way. That Soros’ way is much better- using a few billion bucks he influences a nation’s politics and gets candidates he likes into office, then he buys all the school textbooks for that country so they learn what he wants them to learn. This is obviously a distillation, but if you can handle the Bush-bashing in the second article, you’ll see that even people who are pleased Soros is going to take Bush on find they can’t support the guy’s personal goals and complete lack of ethics. He ends up with more power than he gives the people in his “open societies”.
And then it hit me. As I eluded in my first post, I think most people on most sides of an issue are frustrated that the “other sides” don’t understand them and that the “other sides” are inconsistent.
Well, here’s how I see conservatives as mostly consistent. Our FIRST concern isn’t politics or money (though they are concerns). Our FIRST concern is morals/ethics. You ask how we can support Rudi or Arnold (didn’t want to tackle spelling their last names there) but we can’t support Clinton. With Rudi and Arnold you got an honest admission of what they had done, regret, and reform. With Clinton you got denial and a pattern.
How does this relate to Soros? His own admission that he does not need morals or ethics is troubling. When you allow that you will sacrifice those (such as he does to make billions of dollars at the expense of the average British taxpayer) where does the sacrifice stop? He’s also the self-and-generally-proclaimed “King of Eastern Europe”. What seeds has he left in those countries? What does he control? What freedoms do the people really enjoy? Why does he advocate the legalization of all drugs because, as he put it, it’s the fastest escape from feeling miserable? Is he planning for misery in these places? Why would you need to escape misery if your situation actually improved? Why does he similarly advocate gun control? Do you know WHY we have the second amendment? It is specifically so the GOVERNMENT can’t turn on the PEOPLE. If only the government had weapons...
Anyway, my analysis is far from done, but for a guy who sure acts like he is a solid supporter of capitalism, free trade, and democracy, one who firmly believes socialism is NOT the answer, why is he supporting a socialist style candidate? I am still confused, but it has helped me to do some research. Anyone know more facts about this guy? I’m not so much interested in Bush-bashing on this site (especially since I’m an “unabashed” supporter of our current President) but I am interested in why this guy does what he does.
So, why did this make me want to blog? To come to some peace over the concept that a multi-billionaire who has already hurt many nations (and been of questionable value to others) has set his sites on my country I felt I needed to pray. For those of you who know my religion, prayer for me is not sitting on my knees exhorting God to change things, it is active. You be a good person. You spread love, truth, principle. You don’t back down from the call when it is clear you’ve been asked to spread love, truth, principle. This is part of that action.
I don’t know who will read this blog. I don’t know if they’ll be exultant, outraged, or asleep. But it’s here. I have not only helped myself by organizing my thoughts better (and seeing where more work is needed) but who knows. Someone may end up here who needs to read what I’ve said. I may never know one way or the other, but that’s the same with my position in my church.
I am somewhere between a “minister” and a “lay reader”. My church calls it a First Reader. Once a week I put together a sermon (we have a world-wide sermon on Sundays, but a more local sermon Wednesday evenings). I never know if what I found and want to share helps ANYONE else, but I read it anyway. A few people have mentioned they found something very specific to help them. Who knows. Maybe something in here will eventually help someone else.
Dude. Your snoring is shaking the screen, and it’s a terrible blow to my ego.
What to Expect
You know, I need to define this as much for me as for anyone else. My expectations are that nobody actually reads this stuff. Even your friends, they get into it for a little bit, but they read one or two posts and that’s pretty much it. A few fellow bloggers, perhaps – people “trading off” reading my stuff for theirs.
I am not sure this is going to be a journal. I already keep one of those. You see, I like to write, whether it is tip-tapped into a keyboard or scratching lead across wood pulp. But there are ideas I feel I do want to share that, while they are personal, they are less personal than my journal.
What do I mean? I suppose that my journal is for people who miss me to read after I’m gone. This blog is more for people to understand what I’m thinking now.
Disclaimers, provisos, quid pro quos, etc.:
I am a conservative. I would call myself the “essence” of a conservative, but I’m not sure every (or any other, for that matter) conservative would agree with me. So I don’t know exactly what you’d call me. I will explain it in a moment, and probably from the optimistic, positive perspective I place on my philosophy my liberal friends will call me a liberal, my libertarians a libertarian, my conservatives will nod, because when it comes down to it we all want to see the good parts of our philosophy and not the bad things that happen when someone tries to apply our philosophy to the real world.
I will begin by my most simplistic (and probably antagonistic) definition of my view of a conservative and anyone who is “opposition” to that movement.
To me, a conservative is an optimistic pragmatist. A “liberal” for want of a better “group term” is a pessimistic idealist. Blanket? Yeah. Fair? That’s up to you. This blog is not to make me popular. It’s to explain my thoughts and perspective.
The bottom line is damage control. No simple philosophy, when applied to the world around us, works exactly the way it’s supposed to. Almost all of them have the same flaw. They all rely on pure application – that is to say that nobody is going to try to take advantage of them for gains that actually run counter to the philosophy in the first place. In the real world, however, most people “not” of your philosophy will immediately attempt to take advantage of what you’re pushing through to make themselves more powerful. Power taking the form of money, fame, political clout, whatever.
Does this make me a pessimist? Wouldn’t that make me a liberal by my own definition? No. For two reasons.
First, because I firmly believe MOST people, if left to their own devices, even in a pure “working” libertarian environment (which I do not believe is possible, by the way, part of the pragmatist that keeps me from being a libertarian) would be honest, decent, and respectful.
Second, because I also believe that a near-perfect world environment IS attainable. I don’t think it can happen overnight. I think a lot of struggle has to happen along the way. I believe “world peace” is possible. I think coexisting with everyone is possible. I believe doing it without wrecking the environment is possible. I believe we will populate other planets. I believe we will become, for lack of a better example, “the best Star Fleet has to offer”, a society of people who work for the common good, defend those in need, strive for what is better, and attempt to make peace with our neighbors (whoever they turn out to be). I just happen to believe you can’t expect people to accept the same vision the same way all at once. You need to take practical steps to get there. Let your children be your teachers, and if you don’t have children, please consider having them. How you deal with your own children, what your goals for them are, and how they turn out, are true life lessons in “optimistic pragmatism”.
Let’s see how this blog turns out, if anyone ever reads more than one post, and if anyone likes or will speak to me after that.
- Chameleon
P.S. one of these posts is sure to explain why I use that name for those who don’t already know.
I am not sure this is going to be a journal. I already keep one of those. You see, I like to write, whether it is tip-tapped into a keyboard or scratching lead across wood pulp. But there are ideas I feel I do want to share that, while they are personal, they are less personal than my journal.
What do I mean? I suppose that my journal is for people who miss me to read after I’m gone. This blog is more for people to understand what I’m thinking now.
Disclaimers, provisos, quid pro quos, etc.:
I am a conservative. I would call myself the “essence” of a conservative, but I’m not sure every (or any other, for that matter) conservative would agree with me. So I don’t know exactly what you’d call me. I will explain it in a moment, and probably from the optimistic, positive perspective I place on my philosophy my liberal friends will call me a liberal, my libertarians a libertarian, my conservatives will nod, because when it comes down to it we all want to see the good parts of our philosophy and not the bad things that happen when someone tries to apply our philosophy to the real world.
I will begin by my most simplistic (and probably antagonistic) definition of my view of a conservative and anyone who is “opposition” to that movement.
To me, a conservative is an optimistic pragmatist. A “liberal” for want of a better “group term” is a pessimistic idealist. Blanket? Yeah. Fair? That’s up to you. This blog is not to make me popular. It’s to explain my thoughts and perspective.
The bottom line is damage control. No simple philosophy, when applied to the world around us, works exactly the way it’s supposed to. Almost all of them have the same flaw. They all rely on pure application – that is to say that nobody is going to try to take advantage of them for gains that actually run counter to the philosophy in the first place. In the real world, however, most people “not” of your philosophy will immediately attempt to take advantage of what you’re pushing through to make themselves more powerful. Power taking the form of money, fame, political clout, whatever.
Does this make me a pessimist? Wouldn’t that make me a liberal by my own definition? No. For two reasons.
First, because I firmly believe MOST people, if left to their own devices, even in a pure “working” libertarian environment (which I do not believe is possible, by the way, part of the pragmatist that keeps me from being a libertarian) would be honest, decent, and respectful.
Second, because I also believe that a near-perfect world environment IS attainable. I don’t think it can happen overnight. I think a lot of struggle has to happen along the way. I believe “world peace” is possible. I think coexisting with everyone is possible. I believe doing it without wrecking the environment is possible. I believe we will populate other planets. I believe we will become, for lack of a better example, “the best Star Fleet has to offer”, a society of people who work for the common good, defend those in need, strive for what is better, and attempt to make peace with our neighbors (whoever they turn out to be). I just happen to believe you can’t expect people to accept the same vision the same way all at once. You need to take practical steps to get there. Let your children be your teachers, and if you don’t have children, please consider having them. How you deal with your own children, what your goals for them are, and how they turn out, are true life lessons in “optimistic pragmatism”.
Let’s see how this blog turns out, if anyone ever reads more than one post, and if anyone likes or will speak to me after that.
- Chameleon
P.S. one of these posts is sure to explain why I use that name for those who don’t already know.
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