Bootstraps

I hate the line, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps." When you first hear it, you have to respect it. After all, It's true. Hard work begets success, no? So, it's got roots in the genuinely respectable concept of hard work, mistakes, and toil to achieve a goal. But over time, I suspect that the line has become more of a platitude, a crutch in a particular argument, rather than anything truly meaningful or helpful. The "You didn't work as hard as me because you haven't achieved the same status as me," or "You should pull harder on your bootstraps," arguments are really great ways for the purveyors of those arguments to dismiss indefinitely the possibility that the recipient in question perhaps had to work just as hard if not harder to achieve a lesser status. After all, most of those I hear making that argument vehemently oppose the mere mention of the word "privilege" in the context of socioeconomic class. And not only do those arguments dismiss the idea of privilege, they also implicitly absolve the person making the argument of any personal feelings of obligation to help or guilt that might otherwise arise from their lack thereof. In other words, "You didn't work as hard as me, so I am under no pressure to help you achieve anything you don't deserve. Work harder and you'll get to where I am eventually."

Then, of course, we're left with dismissing the concept of socioeconomic privilege but introducing that of any individual being deserving of anything at all. Who gets to mete out those judgments? In addition, why does the judge deserve that position? What a philosophical mess. I'm sure someone has thought of it and written about it already but I wouldn't know where to look for an answer.

The Ol' Antichrist Hitler Ploy

I know I've been absent for quite a while, but this particular video made me poke my head of the hole for a couple of seconds. This is the funniest segment I've seen on The Daily Show for a long while. I don't know who is giving these crazies a legitimate voice but I know that this group must be stopped. Or laughed at. Heartily.

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Based on one of the best movie endings ever, one of my favorites anyway:

November 4, 2008

Just Sad

I am rather fiercely apolitical. While I believe that most of the people who run our country do have our best interests at heart despite which side of our myopic, two-party coin they tend to agree, the system itself is so dirtied by corporate interests and money that legal actions that might truly initiate necessary radical changes rarely tend to occur.

That being said, I am disgustingly entertained by the recent abhorrent behavior of rally attendees for the Republican presidential nominee. As the Democratic nominee begins to show some strength and our wasp brethren have their toes held to the fire, their true nature is showing. The ignorant comments are telling. Calling out that the Democratic nominee is an Arab or a Muslim, a complete falsehood, is shameful enough in that it continues plant the idea in the heads of the ignorant and stupid. But the real shame should be in the reason why the comment is being uttered in the first place. What if Obama was of Arab decent? What if he were Muslim?

Many conservatives choose their party based on closely held religious beliefs and if these are the people catcalling for things like Obama's death, their hypocrisy astounds. Christianity as it is practiced in America has come to mean fear and isolationism, the active rejection of people or ideas with which its practitioners tend to disagree. While that rejection is not necessarily against the tenets of the faith, the complete lack of respect, tolerance, and dare I say love for any people who might disagree with them is a telling litmus of exactly what impression the religion gives non- and ex-practitioners: selfish, fearful, and ignorant.

I know plenty of faithful Christians and am completely aware that these behaviors do not reflect the actions and beliefs of all of them. However, the palpable fear and ignorance of the others now on public display, their comments putting the ugly face of racism on parade and hate once again acting as the language of the day, is certainly no great advertisement for the conservative party or its Christian adherents. If this is what being faithful means, I respectfully decline.

Irresponsibility

I received this forward in my inbox recently:

Please navigate to this website to sign the online petition asking Congress to (merely) open "exploration of proven energy reserves".

The exact quote of the request is:
"We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries."

This was the personal addendum to the forwarded request. I have removed all of the personal details.

My personal back story.
When I first arrived with my family in [somewhere] in April of 2000, the price of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.35.
I was followed into the 'Jiffy' gas station...by [a] photographer. The following morning [in the newspaper], my photo appeared on B1, during an unusual downturn in local gas prices, 10% lower than they were in [somewhere else] one day before.

At the time I knew gas prices were only destined to rise higher, who could have guessed that the prices would be just below $4.00 per gallon a mere 8 years later!!

We found that that environmental concerns (dire predictions of irreparable harm) were not only addressed with the drilling of Prudhoe Bay and the Alyeska Pipeline, but ultimately grew the migrating Caribou herds. Deafening silence could be their only response.

Plans to drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (A.N.W.A.R.) have much-enhanced plans to protect animal, vegetation and scenic wilderness resources over and far beyond those that succeeded beyond wildest estimations when the Alyeska Pipeline was completed in 1977. [For more firsthand facts, visit: http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/Default.asp]

Please consider a rational scientific approach to your own personal search for Truth in this matter. Do not become entangled in your genuine desire to do something good for the environment, while our worst enemies only celebrate our apparent paralysis, while reaping in vast wealth that serves only to fund our demise.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion even if I disagree with it, but I feel it's disingenuous to say that my opinion is "entangled" in my own "genuine desire to do something good for the environment", thereby automatically implying that my own opinions count for nothing because they are they somehow cannot be separated from my emotions, which by the way, is a purely feminine quality and one not fit for real men. This a good debate tactic, one that states it's opinion and simultaneously discredits the opposite while implying that I may be some kind of sissy-man, but it doesn't get us to any forward-thinking solutions or even compromises. Also, the evidence that I am being provided to make the informed decision that I would need to make in order to sign such a petition is questionable. I would be hard-pressed to believe everything that I read at the website that is owned by the company that runs the Alyeska Pipeline.

In the long run, there is more to think about with this issue than the construction of a pipeline, it's environmental impact, and our wallets. There is also the very real problem of carbon emissions and global warming. As far as I'm concerned, anyone in the professional scientific community who disagrees that the issue is real is either a corporate shill or has been bought by the current administration. Our previous method of fossil fuel dependency is no longer valid. We must move forward. We have the technology NOW to abandon fossil fuels and improve the prospects of our future family's lives, but it will take the efforts of the whole world to step in and do something about it. In the U.S., it will take the government's eliminating the safe legal havens for the oil companies. With the condition of the market, why are they still seeing record profits? We had an electric car on the roads a decade ago, the EV-1, but it was quickly and mysteriously squashed. If we want to talk about signing petitions, how about the U.S. catching up with the rest of the world and signing the Kyoto Protocol. We cannot be so arrogant as to think that we can decide the fate of the entire planet unilaterally. We are not the rootenest tootenest cowpokes on the block.

If I haven't made it abundantly clear, I will not be signing any petitions for what I think is an irresponsible and short-sighted Band-Aid solution.

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Now playing: Printed Circuit (remixed by Fingernail) - Goggles (Fingernail Remix)
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Ownership and Lunacy

We're house owners! The closing went well and we were done in about 2 hours. Now we just need to move our stuff.

Leave it to "music and fashion mogul Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs" to make the American political process more vapid and meaningless than it already is. Eventually that link will be dead, so in the interest of preserving the idiocy of the latest P. Diddy PR campaign, I'll try to recount the major points of the article.

P. Diddy is trying his own hand at getting the holy grail of the voter demographic (those meddling kids) to vote. How will he do this? He'll accomplish his mission by getting "sexy people" to help advertise the idea that voting is "cool". From the article written by AP journalist Nekesha Mumbi Moody, "'Now we're going to make voting cool,' P. Diddy proclaimed as he trotted out fresh young faces, supermodels and even Democratic strategist James Carville at an event to begin his drive." That's just what we need to invigorate the youth to vote... a botox-injected, over-medicated supermodel wearing P. Diddy's over-priced, self-indulgent clothing with political slogans printed on it. And, yes, that actually happened. Also from the Moody article, "Models Tyson Beckford and Lucas provided eye candy as they modeled the T-shirts, and P. Diddy provided plenty of levity." Levity indeed: "When he said the group would charter a jet to travel to swing states to make an impact, he added: 'We will have mimosas on the jet. We're going to have the sexiest jet!'"

Try not to be depressed for the rest of the day!

Currently listening to: μ-Ziq, Brace Yourself Jason