The Case for Chaos

So it's an exciting time.  And by exciting, I mean dangerously unstable.

The French protests which are, contrary to the 24-hour-news-cycle perspective, still going.

British students are occupying universities to get their point across.

Italians are showing that Italians aren't as laid back as their government would like to believe.

And NOW, the whole Wikileaks shabang.  The US has been caught red-handed spying.  Iran has been sending weapons to Hezbollah in ambulances.  Saudi leaders have been pushing for an attack on Iran, while at the same time funding al Qaeda.  The German chancellor is ineffectual.  The Libyan king likes buxom blondes.

And all I can think is that this is absolutely fantastic.

"Every generation needs a new revolution" - Thomas Jefferson

This is a concept I strongly support.  I believe that the only government that will actually work and be representative is one that is again and again being uprooted, rearranged and replaced.  You'd think this might lead to chaos and confusion.  And you'd probably be right a few hundred years ago.  Now, we have facebook, we have email, we have daily updates and twitter posts.  If the technology exists to enable people to keep tabs on their favorite celebrities' bowel movements, I'm pretty damn sure we'd be able to make periodic government adjustments.

The great killer of potential is stagnation.  When you're really comfortable on your couch, it'd take an act of God to move you.  But when you're moving, writing people, meeting papers, you find out how much you're capable of.  And it really is as simple as that.  If people could be infused with the idea that they are active citizens, that their voice matters, we'd have a lot more voices saying a lot more intelligent things.

As it is, people just want to look at pictures of a 14-year-old sister of some dumb hot girl.

But, as I see it, not for long.  The more chaotic the world becomes, the more anything is possible.

Hilarious blog

No, I don't mean mine.  Someone else's.  If you can believe it:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

Check it out.

A problem I have. Or a problem everyone else has.

So, not to sound egotistical, but I think I'm the least egotistical person in the world.

That may be a lie.  As exemplified by the fact that I have a blog.  It is an intrinsic belief for anyone who has blog that their opinion is more important than most other people's.  Compounded by the fact that I'm a writer trying to get published.  Ego becomes a kind of necessity.  If not a commodity.

But sometimes I can't help but get pissed off at people grasping for some cross to bear.

This is the focus of a poem that I've been trying to put together about how hard it is for a middle-class white male to find the crutch on which they can blame everything.  It's a real issue! I mean, the suicide rate for white men is higher than other ethnicities and "suicide experts" say that it's because whites are socialized to be in control and lack the "coping mechanisms" of other ethnicities.  Of course, they're not sure.  But, what is science if not a collection of hearsay and claims grounded in typical social roles?

They teach that shit in psychology textbooks.  I'll tell you what, I spent 30 minutes researching that and didn't find a single goddamn source.  You'd think they'd interview a few white people before putting that out into the world.  I mean, it wouldn't be hard.  We whites are everywhere.

We're all searching for the reason
The reason we didn't get that job
The reason our girlfriend left us
Our kids hate us
Our government fails us
Our stomach hurts.
Privilege was the worst gift we gave to ourselves
We've never been more miserable
Now we have 24-hour news
And wikipedia
To look up worldwide miseries and be damned if we don't make it our own
Sure, we wear Levi's
But we CARE about Chinese labor.

Or something like that.  It's really convenient to have a crutch, a black guy, a God to blame our troubles on.  And so we'll try and solve the puzzle outside ourselves.  Because we can't reach it inside of us.  We don't know what we'll touch.

Keep your government hands off my crack beer

So.  It's official.  Four Loko and Joose are banned.

The people had this to say:

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And this.

I quote: "I think this whole thing stinks! more bureaucratic bull we do not need! we loose our rights inch by inch unless we stand together! please set up a forum where we can voice our opinion and send it to the state legislators! if a hundred thousand pissed off people were pounding on their doors they would listen!"

Yet another step in Obama's socialist agenda, take away our caffeinated alcoholic sugar syrup.  Then take away our freedoms.

God bless America. 

Fun with slave labor

So, this is a cool site.

And, of course, by cool I mean it makes a mockery of the democratic process.  The site is called YouCut, and it's a site where the public can suggest things to cut from the budget.  Essentially, it's the institutionalization of the GOP's policy of indiscriminate obstructionism.  Hooray!

Let me guess.  50% of the solutions involve removing the "black man" from the white house.  The other 50% probably involve...well...this.

In my browsing and fuming at the site, I looked at some of the Republican stances on the issues.  By stances, of course, I mean weird twisting of the facts and bizarre justification of putting all the blame on workers and all the praise on employers.

Honestly, some of their stances make sense.  Like this one:
"Federal unemployment insurance recipients who are most likely to exhaust benefits should be expected to engage in education, training, or enhanced job search as a condition of eligibility. This proposal would expand on the current successful Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment program operated by some States."

Sure, yes, they should show at least some evidence that they're making an effort.  That makes sense.  Of course, "enhanced job search" is a kind of troubling word, but barring that, it's a reasonable idea.

But then there's this:

"The government should require states to adopt a program like "Georgia Works" as a condition of accessing Unemployment Insurance Modernization funds. Under this successful program unemployment insurance recipients are placed in real part time jobs with real employers, with the employer deciding whether to hire them at the end of a 6-week trial period. Their pay during the period is their unemployment benefit, along with a State-provided stipend for job-related transportation and child care expenses. This has resulted in faster returns to work, less unemployment payments, and thus lower State unemployment taxes."

So, essentially, the Repubs think that providing a free supply of expendable employees to companies, more jobs will be created.  Now that's GOP thinkin'.

It's at best allowing companies to do to white people what they already do to Mexicans, at worst it's straight slave labor.  This article asks who benefits more.  Let's examine that.

Benefits to the employer: Free labor, ability to put the employee to work doing whatever they hell they feel like, no need to pay benefits, no need to worry about pesky unions and the ability to kick the employee out after six-weeks.

Benefits to the employee: They work at whatever they get placed in and desperately try to meet that 50% chance they might actually be offered a real position at a company they may not want to work for.

The question is not who benefits more.  The question is why we allow people to propose these ideas without being deported for treason.

This is how catastrophes happen

So on the way to work today, I had to take a different way that lead to me standing in the rain waiting for the shuttle.  Which absolutely put me in the proper mindset for what followed.

A police van pulls up across the street, nothing special considering I live in the gentrification frontier.  In fact, if I didn't see at least one heavily armed policeman on the way home, I'd start getting concerned.  But then one officer piles out while the other is screaming at someone in the back of the van.  I can't get a good view (nor did I particularly want to) but it looks like the guy they arrested is trying to fight the cop, yelling and screaming and kicking.

All of a sudden, everyone is slowing down what they're doing, whipping out cell phones and just generally being an audience.

It occurs to me this is how catastrophes happen.

People stop their work-home beeline
Click and flash their way into history
While this guy, this one guy, could grab hold of a cop's gun
And cause headline news havoc.
Run down the street shooting to freedom
Until his struggle is spent
A quick-trigger officer putting him off his flight
And sending him crashing to the ground.

There could have been blood.  There could have been CNN vans, reporters with microphone-backed questions.  The guy with the iPhone saying it shouldn't have happened.  The girl in tears asking how it could happen.  Shells on the ground and police lines do not cross.  Chalk outlines dripping like made-up eyes.


I would say "I was just trying to get to work.  But that's how it is.  Catastrophes never happen when they're supposed to."

But reality has a bias towards the undramatic.  Some obscene number of cop cars pulled up and the guy was subdued before you could say "don't tase me, bro".  It was over in about ten minutes.  A girl walks up to me and asks "What happened?"

I tell her the truth.  But I almost didn't want to.

Blogs, they are a-changin'

For those three of you that read my blog, you might have noticed a change.

That's because I've decided to hijack my own blog to make it into...my own blog.  I've noticed that anyone serious about writing seems to have some spot that they put their inane musings and half-formed mutant zygotes of ideas, so I decided I needed one too.  I'm still probably going to bitch and moan about this that or another political thing, but I just didn't want to make a whole 'nother blog.  I'm being green, you see.

So, from henceforth, I claim this blog in the name of Big Poppa.  Consider yourself warned.

Japan expands its monopoly on weird

I'm, for real, gonna make this one a short entry.

But I just needed to comment on this.

WHAT!?

This is a combination of creepy, hilarious and totally mind-blowing.  Apparently the Japanese, not content to just dance, watch and have sex with cartoons, now have chosen to make one a pop idol.

What's even more wild about this is that this pop idol, Hatsune Miku, uses a technology called Vocaloid, which essentially allows you to have your lyrics sung by creepily human sounding voices.  So now, not only do you not have to be particularly talented to have your music be famous, you don't even have to be attractive.  It's absolutely wild.  And also weird as hell.

But, then again.  It's Japan: 

Bill Maher is an idiot.

Bah.  Two posts about the Rally to Restore Sanity.  Because, you know, that's real politics.  But I'll console myself in that it's also a post ripping into Bill Maher.

Let me give you some background on the profound hatred I have for this pseudo-intellectual pile of meaningless vaguely leftist rhetoric.

Bill Maher is a libertarian.  I should probably write an entry about this, but I think libertarians are one step away from...you know what I don't even know what they're one step away from.  They're so far outside the realm of logic, not to mention the realm of reasonable political discourse, that I don't know what to say about them.  Privatizing libraries? Can you honestly espouse that view without completely annihilating your relevance?

He's also a member of PETA.  You know.  The PETA that equates mistreated chickens with the HOLOCAUST.

He's a-ok with racial profiling at airports.
Interviewer: I want to go ahead to a stand that you take on racial profiling, and in the book, you say that's fine at airports?
Maher: Absolutely.

And more than anything, he acts as a perfect explanation of why the South and religious people don't trust Democrats or liberals.  Not to mention he's kind of a racist.

This is why when I read this "critique" of Jon Stewarts "rally" I got more than a little miffed.

In response to Jon Stewart claiming that the media only pays attention to the radicals and not the reasonable people, Maher explains how reasonable he is.  This, of course, after his previous claims of how most Republicans are racist and that America is, largely, dumber than Obama.

I quote: "I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11's an inside job."

I always love arguments that begin with "I can't name" or "I can't think of" because it shows how much the person bases their opinion in fact.

So maybe there's no Democrats that believe 9/11 is an inside job.  But there are those that will assert factually inaccurate and terrible things about their opposition.  You know, like claiming that people on the other side are religious nutbag racists.  And not educated and reasonable people.

Mr. Maher, you are the last person that should be arguing that the left is reasonable.  It is.  But only because you're not part of it.

Apparently, everyone hates Obama.

So earlier this week, an astonishing thing happened.  The Republicans won the country and the Democrats are miserable failures and everyone hates Obama.

Or so everyone says.

But I don't.  The only winner this mid-term election seems to be public frustration.  The Democrats lost seniors and independents.  They lost blacks and young people.  Half the people who turned out are dissatisfied with their party.  Everyone's pissed about the economy.  And 58% of Americans want a third party.

But no problem! The Democrats are a-ok with all this.

It is a defeat.  For the government.  People are starting to realize the Republians represent the racists, the homophobes and the rich while the Democrats just represent the rich.  I honestly can't blame people for voting Republican, at least their base is diversified.

And let's just make one thing clear.  This isn't a mandate on Obama.  And it isn't a conservative resurgence.  The so-called Blue Dog Democrats (AKA, Republicans who got lost on their way to Congress) lost BIG.  And the Tea Party got Rand Paul (In Kentucky, a typically red state, what a victory) but lost basically everywhere else. (That source, by the way, is from Fox News.  Fox News talking about the Tea Party being Tuesday's biggest loser.  If there's one thing Fox News reports honestly on, it's when its eating its young.)

But honestly, I see it as an opportunity.  Most people are coming to the realization that neither party represents their interests.  The Democrats demurred when handed the popular mandate and the Republicans start two wars when they're in charge.  The truth is we do need a third party.  And I think when people finally find out that the system is not going to give them jobs, the system is not going to fix the economy and the system doesn't give a shit about their health, we're gonna see some change.

So.  Get angry, people.  We're gonna need that anger when we finally take charge.

The best free concert I've ever been to

(Image from here)

So I'll try and keep this short.

I went to the rally Saturday with no real expectations.  I found myself a combination of disappointed and impressed.  Disappointed because, I realized, I actually did have expectations.  I expected some amount of rally or some degree of march.  Instead I got a concert.  A fantastic concert, to be sure, and free, which was enough to make the calvalcade of misery that was my trip home worth it.  But the political message was confused, if there even was one.

For example:

 

This sign was being handed out like it was free brownies.  I felt offended, though I'm not exactly sure why.  It seemed they were hijacking the message of the rally.  But the rally didn't really have a message, so they were just tacking their cause onto anything they could find.  Which seems about right for pothead activists.

But honestly, the more I think about it, the more I really did like Jon Stewart's closing remarks.  And the more I liked the idea of just prompting people to show up and show that not everyone's crazy.  It was a move against the media, which aims to paint everything in technicolor.  And I can kind of respect that.

Not to mention, watching a little Jewish man from New Jersey booming his voice over a crowd of 200,000 was kind of a neat sight to see.